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ARM INELL 



BY 

S. BARING-GOULD 

uthor or “RED SPIDE^C” “LITTLE TU’PENNY,” Etc., Etc. 



NEW YORK 

FRANK F. LOVELL & COMPANY 

142 & 144 Worth Street 


f 



Copyright, i8Sg, 

By John W. Lovell. 



ARMINELL. 


CHAPTER I. 

SUNDAY SCHOOL. 

Sunday-school on the ground floor of the keeper’s cottage 
that stood against the churchyard, in a piece nibbled out 
of holy ground. Some old folks said this cottage had been 
the church-house where in ancient days the people who 
came to divine service stayed between morning prayer and 
evensong, ate their mid-day meal and gave out and received 
their hebdomadal quotient of gossip. But such days were 
long over, ihe house had been used as a keeper’s lodge for 
at least a hundred years. The basement consisted of one 
low hall exactly six feet one inch from floor to rafters. 
There was no ceiling between it and the upper house — only 
a flooring laid on the rafters. In the pre-traditional da>s 
the men had sat and eaten and drunk in the room above, 
and the women in that below r , between services, and their 
horses had been stabled where now the keeper had his kennel. 

The basement chamber was paved with slabs of slate. 
Rats infested the lodge, they came after the bones and 
biscuits left by the dogs. The pheasants’ food was kept 
there, the keeper’s wife dropped her dripping, and the 

A 


2 


AK MI NELL. 


children were not scrupulous about finishing their crusts. 
The rats undermined the slates, making runs beneath the 
pavement to get at the box of dog biscuits, and the sacks 
of buckwheat, and the parcels of peppercorns ; conse- 
quently the slates were not firm to walk on. Moreover, in 
the floor was a sunless secret cellar, of but eighteen inches 
in depth, for the reception of liquor, or laces or silks that 
had not paid the excise. The slates over this place, long 
disused, were infirm and inclined to let whoever stepped on 
them down. 

During the week the keeper’s wife washed in the base- 
ment and slopped soapy water about, that ran between the 
slates and formed puddles, lurking under corners, and when, 
on Sunday, the incautious foot rested on an angle of slate, 
the slab tilted and squirted forth the stale unsavoury water. 

The room, as already said, was unceiled. The rafters 
were of solid oak ; the boards above were of deal, and had 
shrunk in places, and in places dropped out the core of 
their knots. The keeper’s children found a pleasure in 
poking sticks and fingers through, and in lying flat on the 
floor with an eye on the knot-hole, surveying through it 
the proceedings in the Sunday-school below. 

About the floor in unsystematic arrangement spraddled 
forms of deal, rubbed by boys’ trousers to a polish. Some 
of these forms were high in the leg, others short. No two 
were on a level, and no two were of the same length. 
They were rudely set about the floor in rhomboidal shapes, 
or rather in trapeziums, which according to Euclid have no 
defined shapes at all. 

There was a large open fireplace at one end of the room, 
in which in winter a fire of wood burned. When it burned 
the doer had to be left wide open, because of the smoke, 
consequently Sunday-school was held in winter in a draught. 
At the extremity of the room, opposite the fireplace, stood 
Moses and Aaron — not in the flesh, nor even in spirit, but 


ARMINELL. 


3 


in “ counterfeit presentment ” as large as life, rudely painted 
on board. They had originally adorned the east end of the 
chancel ; when, however, the fashion of restoring churches 
set in, Orleigh Church had been done up, and Moses and 
Aaron had been supplanted to make room for a horrible 
reredos of glazed tiles. One of the Sunday-school scholars, 
a wag, had scribbled mottoes from their mouths', on scrolls, 
and had made Aaron observe to Moses, “ Let us cut off 
c*ir noses ; ” to which the meekest of men was made to 
rejoin, “ It is the fashion to wear ’em.” But through ortho- 
graphical weakness, fashion had been spelled fashum , and 
wear ’em had been rendered warum. 

But why was the Sunday-school held in the basement of 
the keeper’s cottage ? For the best of goqd reasons. There 
was no other room conveniently near the church in which 
it could be held. 

Lady Lamerton could not live in peace without a Sun- 
day school. To her, the obligation to keep the ten com- 
mandments was second to the obligation to keep Sunday- 
school. How could the ten commandments be taught, 
unless there were a Sunday-school in which to teach them ? 
About a century ago Mr. Raikes invented and introduced 
this institution ; it spread like measles, schools multiplied 
like maggots. It became an incubus on consciences. It 
was supposed to be the panacea for all moral evil. There 
are still to be found persons with child-like faith in Sunday- 
schools, as there are to be found persons who believe in 
spontaneous combustion and calomel. 

The national school was two miles distant, near the village. 
The church stood in the grounds of Orleigh Park, and its 
satellite, the Sunday-school, necessarily near it. 

In Yorkshire it is customary among the lower classes at 
dinner, when there is meat, to introduce first a huge and 
heavy slab of pudding, and the young people are expected 
to devour a pound’s weight of this before meat is put on 


4 


ARMINELL. 


their plates. It is thought, and justly, that a grounding of 
leaden dough will make their appetites less keen for roast 
beef. On the same principle the disciples of Mr. Raikes 
serve out Sunday-school, slabby and heavy, to young 
church-folk, before church worship, to abate in some degree 
their relish for it. 

There had been some difficulty about a habitat for the 
Sunday-school. Lady Lamerton had tried to hold it in the 
laundry of the great house, but the. children in muddy 
weather had brought in so much dirt that no laundry-work 
could be done in the room on Monday till it had been 
scoured out. Besides — a fearful discovery had been made, 
better left to the imagination than particularized. Suffice 
it to say that after this discovery the children were banished 
the laundry. It insist have come from them. From whom 
else could it have been derived ? The laundry-maids were 
Aphrodites, foam, or rather soapsud-born, and it could not 
proceed from such as they. Some said — but nonsense — there 
is no such thing as spontaneous generation. Pasteur has ex- 
ploded that. So all the pupils, with their prayer-books and 
Ancient-and-Moderns under their arms, made an exodus, and 
went for a while into an outhouse in the stable-yard. There 
they did not remain long, for the boys hid behind doors in- 
stead of coming in to lessons, and then dived into the stables 
to see the horses. One of them nearly died from drinking 
embrocation for spavin, thinking it was cherry-brandy, and 
another scratched his ignoble name on the panel of one of 
my lord’s carriages with a pin. 

So, on the complaint of the coachman, my lord spoke 
out, and the Sunday scholars again tucked their prayer- 
books and hymnals under their arms, and, under the 
guidance of Lady Lamerton, migrated to a settled habita- 
tion in the basement of the keeper’s cottage. The place 
was hardly commodious, but it had its advantages — it was 
near the church. 


ARMINELL. 


5 


Lady Lamerton, who presided over the Sunday-school 
and collected the Sunday scholars’ club-pence, and distri- 
buted that dreary brown-paper-covered literature that 
constituted the Sunday-school lending library, was a middle- 
aged lady with a thin face and very transparent skin, 
through which every vein showed. There was not much 
character in her face, but it possessed' a certain delicacy 
and purity that redeemed it from being uninteresting. She 
was — it could be read in every feature — a scrupulously 
conscientious woman, a woman strong in doing her duty, 
and in that only ; one whose head might be and generally 
was in a profound muddle as to what she believed, but who 
never for a moment doubted as to what she should do. 
She would be torn by wild horses rather than not keep 
Sunday-school, and yet did not know what to teach the 
children in the school she mustered. 

Lady Lamerton, seated on a green garden chair from 
which the paint was much rubbed away, had about her on 
three sides of an irregular square the eldest girls of the 
school. The next class to hers was taken by the Honour- 
able Arminell Inglett, her step-daughter, only child of Lord 
Lamerton by his first wife. < 

Miss Inglett was very different in type from her step- 
mother ; a tall, handsome girl, with dark hair cut short, like 
a boy’s, and eyes of violet blue. She had a skin of the 
purest olive, no rose whatever in her cheeks, as transparent 
as Lady Latnerton’s, but of a warmer tone, like the mellow 
of an old painting, whereas that of her step-mother had the 
freshness and crudeness of a picture from the easel sent to 
the Royal Academy on the first of May. 

Arminell differed from Lady Lamerton in expression as 
completely as in type of feature and colour. She had an 
unusual breadth of brow, whereas Lady Lamerton’s fore- 
head was narrow. Her eyes had not that patient gentleness 
that filled the dark blue orbs of her ladyship, they were 


6 


ARMINELL. 


quick and sparkling. Her lips, somewhat prominent, were 
full, warm, and contemptuous. She held her head erect, 
with a curl of the mouth, and a contraction of the brows, 
that expressed impatience to the task on which she was 
engaged. 

On the left side of Miss Inglett sat Captain Tubb, en- 
gaged on the illumination of the souls of the senior boys. 
Captain Tubb held no commission in the army or navy, 
not even in the volunteers. He was, in fact, only the 
manager of a lime-quarry in the parish, on the estate of Lord 
Lamerton, but such heads over gangs of quarry and mining 
men bear among the people the courtesy-title of captain. 

Mr. Tubb was a short, pale man with shiny face much 
polished, and with sandy moustache and beard. When he 
was in perplexity, he put his hand to hi's mouth, and stroked 
his moustache, or his beard under the chin, turned it up, 
and nibbled at the ends. 

Some folk said that the captain taught in school so as to 
stand well with her ladyship, who would speak a word for 
him to my lord ; but the rector thought, more charitably, 
he did it for his soul’s and conscience sake. Captain Tubb 
was>a simple man, except in his business, and in that he 
was sharp enough. Perhaps he taught a class from mixed 
motives, and thought it would help him on a bit in both worlds. 

“Yes,” said Lady Lamerton, “yes, Fanny White, go on. 
As the list of the canonical books is known to you all, I 
require you to learn the names of those books which, as the 
sixth article says, are read for example of life and instruc- 
tion of manners ; but yet are not applied to establish any 
doctrine. After that we will proceed to learn by heart the 
names of the Homilies, twenty-one in all, given in the 
thirty-fifth article, which are the more important, because 
they are not even read and hardly any one has a copy of 
them. Go on with the uncanonical books. Third Book 
of Esdras, Fourth Book of Esdras.” 


ARMINELL. 


7 


“Tobit,” whispered the timid Fanny White, and curtsied. 

“Quite right, Tobit — go on. It is most important for 
your soul’s health that you should know what books are 
not canonical, and in their sequence. What comes after 
Tobit ? ” 

“ Judith,” faltered Fanny. 

“ Then a portion of Esther, not found in Hebrew. What 
next?” 

“Wisdom,” shouted the next girl, Polly Woodley. 

“True, but do not be so forward, Polly; I am asking 
Fanny White.” 

“ Ecclesiasticks,” in a timid, doubtful sigh from Fanny, 
who raised her eyes to the boards above, detected an eye 
inspecting her through a knot-hole, laughed, and then 
turned crimson. 

“Not sticks,” said Lady Lamerton, sweetly, “you must 
say — cus.” 

A dead silence and great doubt fell on the class. 

“Yes, go on — cus.” 

Then faintly from Fanny, “ Please, my lady, mother says 
I b’aint to swear.” 

“ I don’t mind,” exclaimed the irrepressible Polly Wood- 
ley, starting up, and thrusting her hand forward into Lady 
Lamerton’s face. “ Darn it.” 

Her ladyship fell back in her chair; the eye was with- 
drawn from the hole in the floor, and a laugh exploded up- 
stairs. 

“ I — 1 didn’t mean that,” explained the lady, “ I meant, 
not Ecclesiastics, nor Ecclesiastes, which is canonical, but 
TEcclesiasti — cus, whicn is not.” 

fust then a loud, rolling, grinding sound made itself 
heard through the school room, drowning the voices of the 
teachers and covering the asides of the taught. 

“ Dear me,” said Lady Lamerton, “ there is the keeper’s 
wife rocking the cradle again. One of you run upstairs 


8 


ARM IN ELL. 


and ask her very kindly to desist. It is impossible for any 
one to hear what is going on below with that thunder roll- 
ing above.” 

“ Please, my lady,” said Polly, peeping up through the 
nearest knot in the superjacent plank, “ it b’aint Mrs. 
Crooks, it be Bessie as is rocking of the baby. Wicked 
creetur not to be at school.” 

“ It does not matter who rocks the cradle,” said her 
ladyship, “ nor are we justified in judging others. One of 
you — not all at once — you, Polly Woodley, ask Bessie to 
leave the cradle alone till later.” 

The whole school listened breathlessly as the girl went 
out, tramped up the. outside slate steps to the floor occupied 
by the keeper’s family above, and heard her say : — 

“ Now, then, Bessie ! What be you a-making that racket 
for ? My lady says she’ll pull your nose unless you stop at 
once. My lady’s doing her best to teach us to cuss down- 
stairs, and her can’t hear her own voice wit’out screeching 
like a magpie.” • 

Then up rose Lady Lamerton in great agitation. 

“ That girl is intolerable. She shall not have a ticket for 
good conduct to-day. I will go — no, you run, Joan Ball, 
and make her return. I will have a proper school-room 
built. This shall not occur again.” 

Then Captain Tubb rose to his full height, stood on a 
stool, put his mouth to the orifice in the plank, placed his 
hands about his mouth and roared through the hole : “ Her 
ladyship saith Come down.” 

Presently with unabashed self-satisfaction Polly Woodley 
reappeared. 

“ When I send you on an errand,” said Lady Lamerton 
severely, “ deliver it as given. I am much displeased.” 

“Yes, my lady, thank you,” answered Polly with cheerful 
face, and resumed her seat in class. 

“ Now, boys,” said Captain Tubb to his class, which wa? 


ARMINELL. 


9 


compost d of the senior male scholars, including Tom 
Metters, the rascal who had put the inscriptions in the 
mouths of Moses and Aaron. “Now, boys, attention. The 
cradle and Polly Woodley are nothing to you. We will 
proceed with what we were about.” 

“ Please, sir,” said Tom Metters, thrusting forth his hand 
as a semaphore, “ what do Quinquagesima, Septuagesima 
and the lot of they rummy names mean ? ” 

“ Rummy,” reproved Captain Tubb, “ is an improper 
term to employ. Say, remarkable. Quinquagesima ” — he 
stroked his moustache, then brightened — “ it is the name 
of a Sunday.” 

“ I know, sir, but why is it so called ? ” 

“ Why are you called Tom Metters ? ” asked the captain 
as a feeble effort to turn the tables. 

“I be called Tom after my uncle, and Metters is my 
father’s name — but Quinquagesima ? ” 

“ Quin-qua-gess-im-a ! ” mu>ed the captain, and looked 
furtively towards my lady for help, but she was engrossed 
in teaching her class what books were not to be employed for 
the establishment of doctrine, and did not notice the appeal 
“ Yes, sir,” persisted Metters, holding him as a ferr<? 
holds the throat of a rabbit, “ Quinquagesima.” 

“ I think,” said Tubb, eagerly, “w T e were engaged Of 
David’s mighty men. Go on with the mighty men.” 

“ But, please sir, I do want to know about Quinqua 
gesima, cruel bad.” 

“ Quin-qua-gess-ima,” sighed Captain Tubb, nibbling the 
ends of his beard; then again in a lower sigh, “Quinqua 
gess-ima?” He looked at Arminell for enlightenment, 
but in vain. She was listening amused and scornful. 

“ Gessima — gessima ! ” said Mr. Tubb ; then falteri’ qly : 
“ It’s a sort of creeper, over veranders.” 

He saw a flash in Arminell’s eye, and took it a? en- 
couragement. Then, with confidence, he advanced. 


IO 


ARMINELL. 


“Yes, Metters, it means that this is the Sunday or week 
whereabouts the yaller jessamine — or in Latin, gessima— 
do begin to bloom.” 

“ Thank you, sir — and Septuagesima ? ” 

“ That,” answered the captain with great promptitude, 
“ that is when the white ’un flowers.” 

“ But, sir, there’s another Sunday collick, Sexagesima. 
There’s no red or blue jessamine, be there ? ” 

“ Red, or blue ! ” The teacher looked hopelessly at 
Arminell, who with compressed lips observed him and shook 
her head. 

“ Sex — sex — sex,” repeated Mr. Tubb, with his mouth 
full of beard, “ always means females. That means the 
female jessamine.” 

“Be there any, sir? There’s a petticoat narcissus, and 
a lady’s smock, and a marygold, but I never heard of a she- 
jessamine.” 

“ There are none here,” answered Tubb, “ but in the 
Holy Land — lots.” 

“ Really, Arminell,” said Lady Lamerton, “ your class is 
doing nothing but play and disturb mine.” 

“ I am on the stool of the learner,” sneered the girl. 

At that moment, through the ceiling, or rather boards 
nbove, dropped a black-handled kitchen fork within a hair’s 
breadth of Arminell’s head. She drew back, startled. 

“ What is it ? What is the matter ? ” exclaimed Lady 
Lamerton. “ Run up, Polly Woodley ! — no, not you this 
time ; you, Fanny White, and see what they are about 
upstairs.” 

“ Please, my lady,” said Polly, peering into the higher 
regions through the hole, “ Bessie have given the baby the 
knives and forks to play with, ’cause you wont let her rock 
the cradle and to keep ’un from crying. He’s a shoving 
’em through the floor.” 

Then, down through the knot-hole descended a shower 


AR MI NELL. 


1 1 


of comfits. The child had been given a cornet by its 
mother, and had eagerly opened it, over the hole where it 
had poked the fork. 

The school floor was overspread with a pink and white 
hail-shower. In a moment, all order was over. The classes 
broke up into individual units, all on the floor, kicking, 
scratching, elbowing, grabbing after the scattered comfits, 
thrusting fingers into eyes, into soapy water ; getting them 
trodden on, nipped between slates, a wriggling, contending, 
greedy, noisy tangle of small humanity, and above it stood 
my lady protesting, and Captain Tubb nibbling the ends of 
his sandy beard, and looking dazed ; and Arminell Inglett, 
half angry, half amused, altogether contemptuous. 

“ There ! ” exclaimed Lady Lamerton, “ the bells are 
going for divine service In places at once — Let us Dray 1 w 


CHAPTER II. 


A FOLLOWER. 

The church bells were ringing, the Sunday school had at 
last been reduced' to order, arranged in line, and wriggled, 
sinuous, worm-like, along the road and up the avenue to the 
church porch. Lady Lamerton, brandishing her sunshade 
ns a field-marshal’s baton, kept the children in place, and 
directed the head of the procession. 

But with what heart-burnings, what envies, what excited 
passions did that train sweep on its way. Some of the 
children had got more comfits than others, and despised 
those less favoured by luck, and others comfitless envied 
the more successful. Polly Woodley had secured more 
comfits than the rest, and had them screwed in the corner 
of her pocket handkerchief, and she thrust it exultantly 
under the eyes of Fanny White, who had come off with one 
only. 

Some sobbed because they had crumpled their gowns, 
one boy howled because in stooping he had ruptured his 
nether garments, Joan Ball had broken the feather in her 
hat, and revenged herself on her neighbour by a stab of 
pin. One child strewed its tongue with comfits, and when 
I.idy Lamerton did not observe, exposed its tongue to the 
rest of the children to excite their envy. Another was 
ngaged in wiping out of its eyes the soapy water that in 
ihe scuffle had been squirted into them. 

Captain Tubb dropped away at the church gates to shake 


ARMINELL. 


13 


hands with, and talk to, some of the villagers, the inn- 
keeper to the Lamerton Arms, the churchwarden, the 
guardian of the poor, and the miller, men who constituted 
the middle crumb of the parochial loaf. 

Lady Lamerton likewise deserted her charges at the 
porch, and having consigned them to the clerk, returned on 
her course, entered the drive, and proceeded to meet his 
lordship, that they might make their solemn entrance into 
church together. Arminell had disappeared. 

“ Where is the girl ? ” asked her ladyship when she took 
my lord’s arm. 

“ Haven’t seen her, my dear.” 

“ Really, Lamerton,” said my lady, “ she frightens me. 
She is so impulsive and self-willed. She flares up when 
opposed, and has no more taste for Sunday-school than I 
have for oysters. I do my best to influence her for good, 
but I might as well try to influence a cocoa-nut. By 
the way, Lamerton, you really must build us a Sunday- 
school, the inconveniences to which we are subjected are 
intolerable.” 

“ Have you seen Legassick, my dear ? ” 

“ I believe he is standing-by the steps.” 

“ I must speak to him about the road, it has been stoned 
recently. Monstrous ! It should have been metalled in 
the winter, then the stones would have worked in, now 
they will be loose all the summer to throw down the horses.’’ 

“ And you will build us a Sunday-school ? ” 

“ I will see about it. Won’t the keeper’s lodge do ? 
The woman does not wash downstairs on a Sunday.” 

“ I wish you kept school there one Sabbath day. You 
would discover how great are the discomforts. Now we 
are at the church gates and must compose our minds.” 

“ Certainly, my dear. The lord-lieutenant is going to 
make Gammon sheriff.” 

“ Why Gammon ? ” 


ARMINELL. 


T 4 

“ Because he can afford to pay for the honour. The old 
squiie-rchy can’t bear the expense.” 

“ Hush, we are close to the church, and must withdraw 
our minds from the world.” 

“ So I will, dear. Eggin’s pigs have been in the garden 
again.” 

“ There’ll be the exhortation to-day, Lamerton, and you 
must stand up for it. Next Sunday is Sacrament Sunday.” 

“To be sure. I’ll have a lower line of wire round the 
fences. Those pigs go where a hare will run.” 

“ Have you brought your hymnal with you ? ” 

Lord Lamerton fumbled in his pocket, and produced his 
yellow silk kerchief and a book together. 

“That,” said his wife, “is no good; it is the old edition.” 

“ It doesn’t matter. 1 will open the book, and no one 
will be the wiser.” 

“ But you will be thinking during the hymn of Eggin’s 
pigs and Gammon’s sheriffalty.” 

“ I’ll do better next Sunday. The gardener tells me they 
have turned up your single dahlias.” 

“ Hush ! we are in the church. Arminell is not in the 
pew. Where can she be ? ” 

Arminell was not in church. She was, in fact, walking 
away from it, and by the time her father had entered his 
pew and looked into his ha , had put a distance ot half a 
mile between herself and the sacred building. A sudden 
fit of disgust at the routine of Sunday duties had come over 
her, and she resolved to absent herself that morning from 
church, and pay a visit to a deserted lime quarry, where she 
cou d spend an hour alone, and her moral and religious 
sense, as she put it, could recover tone after the ordeal of 
Sunday-school. 

“ What can induce my lady to take a class every Sun- 
day ? ” questioned Arminell, in her thought. “ It does no 
good to the children, and it maddens the teachers. But, 


ARMINF.LL. 


i5 


oh ! what a woman mamma is! Providence must have been 
hard up for ideas when it produced my lady. How tire- 
some ! ” 

These last words were addressed to a bramble that had 
caught in her skirt. She shook her gown impatiently and 
walked on. The bramble still adhered and dragged. 

ki What a nuisance,” said Arminell, and she whisked her 
skirt round and endeavoured to pick off the brier, but in- 
effectually. 

“ Let me assist you,” said a voice ; and in a moment a 
young man leaped the park wall, stepped on the end of the 
bramble, and said, “ Now, if you please, walk on, Miss 
Inglett.” 

Arminell took a few steps and was free. She turned, 
and with a slight bow said, “ I thank you, Mr. Saltren.” 
Then, with a smile, “I wish I could get rid of all tribula- 
tions as easily.” 

“ And find them whilst they cling as light. You are per- 
haps not aware that ‘ tribulation ’* derives from the Latin 
tribulus, a bramble.” 

“ So well aware was I that I perpetrated the joke which 
you have spoiled by threshing it. Why are you not at 
^church, Mr. Saltren, listening for the rector’s pronunciation 
of the Greek names of St. Paul’s acquaintances, in the 
hopes of detecting a false quantity among them ? ” 

“ Because Giles has a cold, and I stay at my lady’s desire 
to read the psalms and lessons to him.” 

“ I wonder whether schooling Giles is as intolerable as 
taking Sunday class ; if it be, you have my grateful sym- 
pathy.” 

“ Your sympathy, Miss Inglett, will relieve me of many a 
tribulus which adheres to my robe.” 

“ Is Giles a stupid boy and troublesome pupil ? ” 

“Not at all. My troubles are not connected with my 
little pupil.” 


i6 


ARMINELL. 


“ Class-taking in that Sunday-school is a sort of mental 
'garrotting,” said ArminelL “ I wonder whether a teacher 
always feels as if his brains were being measured for a hat 
when he is giving instruction.” 

“ Only when there is non-receptivity in the minds of 
those he teaches, or tries to teach. May I ask if you are 
going to church, Miss Inglett ? ” 

“ I have done the civil by attending the Sunday-school, 
and the articles disapprove of works of supererogation. I 
am going to worship under the fresh green leaves, and to 
listen to the choir of the birds — blackbird, thrush and ouzel. 
I am too ruffled in temper to sit still in chur.ch and listen 
to the same common-places in the same see-saw voice from 
the pulpit. Do you know what it is to be restless, Mr. 
Saltren, and not know what makes you ill at ease ? To 
desire greatly something, and not know what you long 
after?” 

The young man was walking beside her, a little in the 
rear, respectfully, not full abreast. He was a pale man 
with an oval face, dark eyes and long dark lashes, and a 
slight downy moustache. 

“ I can in no way conceive that anything can be lacking 
to Miss Inglett,” he said. “ She has everything to make 
life happy, an ideally perfect lot, absolutely deficient in 
every element that can jar with and disturb tranquillity and 
happiness.” 

“ You judge only by exterior circumstances. You might 
say the same of the bird in the egg — it fits it as a glove, it 
is walled round by a shell against danger, it is warmed by 
the breast of the parent, why should it be impatient of its 
coiled-up, comatose condition ? Simply because that con- 
dition is coiled-up and comatose. Why should the young 
sponge ever detach itself from the rock on which it first 
developed by the side of the great absorbent old sponge ? 
It gets enough to eat, it is securely attached by its foot to 


ARM1NELL. 


17 


the rock ; it is in the oceanic level that suits its existence. 
Why should it let go all at once and float away, rise to the 
surface and cling elsewhere ? Because of the monotony oi 
its life of absorption and contraction, and of its sedentary 
habits. But, there— enough about myself. I did not intend 
to speak of myself. You have brambles clinging to you. 
Show me them, that I may put my foot on them and free you." 

“ You know, Miss Inglett, who I am — the son of the 
captain of the manganese mine, and that his wife is an old 
lady’s maid from the park. You know that I was a clever 
boy, and that his lordship most generously interested him- 
self in me, and when it was thought I was consumptive, 
sent me for a couple of winters to Mentone. You know 
that he provided for my schooling, and sent me to the 
University, and then most kindly took me into Orleigh as 
tutor to your half-brother Giles, till I can resolve to enter 
the Church, when, no doubt, he will some day give me a 
living. All that you know. Do not suppose I am insen- 
sible to his lordship’s kindness, when I say that all this 
goodness shown me has sown my soul full of brambles, and 
made me the most miserable of men.” 

“ But how so?” Miss Inglett looked at him with un- 
feigned surprise. “ As you said to me, so say I to you, and 
excuse the freedom. Mr. Saltren has everything to make 
life happy, education, comfortable quarters, kind friends, 
an assured future, an ideally perfect lot, absolutely deficient 
in disturbing elements.” 

“ Now you judge by the outside. I admit to the full that 
Lord Lamerton has done everything he could think of to 
do me good, but can one man calculate what will suit 
another ? Will a bog plant thrive in loam, or a heath in 
clay ? ” 

“You do not think that what has been done for you is 
well done ? ” 

“ I am not inclined for the Church, 1 have a positive 


i8 


ARMINELL. 


distaste for the ministry, and yet Lord Lamerton is bent on 
my being a parson. If I do not become one, what am I to 
be? I cannot go back to the life whence I have been 
taken ; I cannot endure to be with those who hold their 
knives by the middle when eating, and drink their tea out 
of their saucers, and take their meals in their shirt sleeves. 
Remember I have been translated from the society to which 
by birth I belong, to another as different from it as is that 
of Brahmins from Esquimaux ; I cannot accommodate my- 
self again to what was once my native element. Baron 
Munchausen, in one of his voyages, landed on an island 
made of cream cheese, and only discovered it by the faint- 
ing of a sailor who had a natural antipathy to cream 
cheese. I have come ashore on an island the substance 
of which is altogether different from the soil where I was 
born. I cannot say I have an ineradicable distaste for it, 
but that at first I found a difficulty in walking on it. The 
specific gravity of cream cheese is other than that of clay. 
Now that I have acquired the light and trippant tread that 
suits, if I return to my native land, my paces will be 
criticised, and regarded as affected, and myself as super- 
cilious, for not at once plodding from my shoulders like a 
ploughboy in marl. How was it with poor Persephone 
who spent half her time in the realm of darkness and half 
in that of light? She carried to the world of light her 
groping tentative walk, and was laughed at, and when in 
Hades, she trod boldly as if in day and got bruises and 
bloody noses. Even now I am in a state of oscillation 
between the two spheres, and am at home in neither, 
miserable in both. When I am in the cream-cheese 
island I never feel that I can walk with the buoyancy of one 
born on cream cheese. 1 can never quite overcome the 
sense of inhaling an atmosphere of cheese, never quite find 
the buttermilk squeezed out of it taste like aniseed 
water.” 


ARM IN ELL. 


19 


Arminell could not refrain from a laugh. “ Really, Mr. 
Saltren, you are not complimentary to our island.” 

“ Call it the Isle of Rabat la Koum, Turkish Delight, or 
Guava Jelly — anything luscious. One who has eaten salt 
pork and supped vinegar cannot at once tutor his palate to 
everything saccharine to a syrup.” 

“ But what really troubles you in the Isle of Guava ?” 

“ I am not a native but a stranger. Your tongue is by 
me acquired. There are even tones and inflexions of voice 
in you I cannot attain because my vocal organs got set in 
another world. A man like myself taken up and carried 
into a different sphere by another hand is inevitably so self- 
conscious that his self-consciousness is a perpetual torment 
to him. According to the apocryphal tale, an angel caught 
Habakkuk by the hair and carried him with a mess of 
pottage in his hands through the air, and deposited him in 
Daniel’s den of lions. Your father has been my angel, who 
has taken me up and transported me, and now I am in a 
den of lordly beasts who stalk round me and wonder how I 
came among them, and turn up their noses at the bowl I 
carry in my shaking hands.” 

“ And you want to escape from us lions ?” 

“ Pardon me — I am equally ill at ease elsewhere, I have 
associated with lions till I can only growl.” 

“ And lash yourself raw,” laughed Arminell ; “you know 
a lion has a nail at the end of his tail, wherewith he goads 
himself.” 

“ I can torture myself— that is true,” said Saltren, in a 
disquieted tone. “ My lord will give me a living and pro- 
vide for me if I will enter the Church, but that is precisely 
an atmosphere I do not relish — and what am I to do? 
I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed.” 

“ Mr. Saltren, you are not at ease in the lion’s den, but 
suppose you were to crawl out and get into the fields ? ” 

“ I should lose my way, having been carried by the 


20 


ARMINELL. 


angel out of my own country. You see the wretchedness 
of my position, I am uncomfortable wherever I am. In my 
present situation I imagine slights. Anecdotes told at 
table make me wince, jokes fret me. Conversation on 
certain subjects halts because I am present. Yet I cannot 
revert to my native condition ; that would be deterioration, 
now I have acquired polish, and have progressed.” 

“I should not have supposed, Mr. Saltren, that you were 
so full of trouble.” 

“ No, looking on a rose-pip, all smoothness, you do not 
reckon on its being full of choke within. And now — Miss 
Inglett, you see at once an instance of my lack of tact and 
knowledge. I am in doubt whether I have done well to 
pour out my pottle of troubles in your ear, or whether I 
behaved like a booby.” 

“ I invited you to it.” 

“ Precisely, but in the language of the Isle of Guava, 
words do not mean what they are supposed to mean in the 
Land of Bacon. 1 may have transgressed those invisible 
bounds which you recognise by an instinct of which I am 
deficient. There are societies which have laws and signs of 
fellowship known only to the initiated. You belong to one, 
the great Freemasonry of Aristocratic Culture. You all 
know one another in it, how — is inconceivable to me, 
though I watch and puzzle to find the symbol ; and your 
laws, unwritten, I can only guess at, but you all know them, 
suck them in with mother’s milk. I have been brought up 
among you, but I have only an idea of your laws, and as for 
your shibboleth — it escapes me altogether. And now — I 
do not know whether I have acted rightly or wrongly in 
telling you how I am situated. I am in terror lest in taking 
you at your word I may not have grossly offended you, and 
lest you be now saying in your heait, What an unlicked 
cub this is ! how ignorant of tact, how lacking in good 
breeding ! He should have passed off my invitation 


AR MI NELL. 


21 


with a joke about brambles. He bores me, he is insuffer- 
able.” 

“ I assure you — Mr. Saltren ” 

“ Excuse my interrupting you. It may or may not be so. 
I daresay I am hypersensitive, over-suspicious.” 

“ And now, Mr. Saltren, I think Giles is waiting for his 
psalms and lessons.” 

" You mean — I have offended you.” 

“ Not at all. I am sorry for you, but I think you are — 
excuse the word — morbidly sensitive.” 

“ You cannot understand me because you have never 
been in my land. Baron Munchausen # says that in the 
moon the aristocrats when thpy want to know about the 
people send their heads among them, but their trunks and 
hearts remain at home. The heads go everywhere and re- 
turn with a report of the wants, thoughts and doings of the 
common people. You are the same. You send your 
heads to visit us, to enquire about us, to peep at our ways, 
and search out our goings, but you do not understand us, 
because you have not been heart and body down to finger- 
ends and toes among us, and of us — you cannot enter into 
our necessities and prejudices and gropings. But I see, I 
bore you. In the tongue of the Isle of Guava you say to 
me, Giles wants his psalms and lessons. Which being in- 
terpreted means, This man is a bramble sticking to my 
skirts, following, impeding my movements, a drag, a 
nuisance. I must get rid of him. I wish you a good 
morning. Miss Inglett ; and holy thoughts under the green- 
wood tree ! ” 


CHAPTER III. 

IN THE OWL’S NEST. 


Arm in ell Inglett made the best of her way to the old 
quarry. She was impatient to be alone, to enjoy the 
beautiful weather, the spring sights and sounds, to recover 
the elasticity of spirit of which she had been robbed by the 
Sunday-school. 

But would she recover that elasticity after her conversa- 
tion with the young tutor ? What he had said was true. 
He was a village lad of humble antecedents who had been 
taken up by her father because he was intelligent and 
pleasing, and commended by the schoolmaster, and de- 
licate. Lord and Lady Lamerton were ever ready to do a 
kindness to a tenant or inhabitant of Orleigh. When any 
of the latter were sick, they received jellied and soups and 
the best port wine from the park ; and a deserving child in 
school received recognition, and a steady youth was sure of 
a helping hand into a good situation. 

More than ordinary favour had been shown to this young 
man, son of Stephen Saltren, captain of the manganese 
mine. He had been lifted out of the station in which he 
had been born, and was promoted to be the instructor of 
Giles. Arminell had always thought her father’s conduct 
towards him extraordinarily kind, and now her eyes were 
open to see that it had been a cruel kindness, filling the 
young man’s heart with a bitterness that contended with his 
gratitude. 


ARMINELL. 


23 


It would have been more judicious perhaps had Lord 
Lamerton sent young Jingles elsewhere. 

J ingles, it must be explained, was not the tutor’s Christian 
name. He had been baptized out of compliment to his 
lordship, Giles Inglett, and Giles Inglett Saltren was his 
complete name. But in the national school his double 
Christian name had been condensed, not without a flavour 
of spite, into Jingles, and at Orleigh he would never be 
known by any other. 

The old lime-quarry lay a mile from the park. It was a 
picturesque spot, and would have been perfectly beautiful 
but for the heaps of rubbish thrown out of it which took 
years to decay, and which till decayed were unsightly. 
The process had, however, begun. Indeed, as the quarry 
had been worked for a century prior to its abandonment, a 
good deal of the “ ramp,” as such rubbish heaps are locally 
called, was covered with grass and pines. 

Lord Lamerton had done his best to disguise the naked- 
ness by plantations of Scotch-larch and spruce, which took 
readily to the loose soil, the creeping roots grasped the 
nodes of stone and crushed them as in a vice, then sucked 
out of them the nutriment desired ; the wild strawberry 
rioted over the banks, and the blackberry brambles dropped 
their trailers over the slopes, laden in autumn with luscious 
fruit, and later, when flowers are scarce, with frost-touched 
leaves, carmine, primrose, amber and purple. 

At the back of the quarry was an old wood, sloping to 
the south and breaking off sharply at the precipice where 
the lime rock had been cut away; this was a wood of oaks 
with an undergrowth of bracken and male fern, and huge 
hollies. Here and there large venerable Scotch pines rose 
above the rounded surface of the oak tops, in some places 
singly, elsewhere in dark clumps. 

The rock of the hill was slaty. The strata ran down and 
made a dip and came to the surface again, and in the lap 


24 


ARMINELL. 


lay the lime-stone. When the quarry-men had deserted the 
old workings, water came in and partly filled it, to the 
depth of forty feet, with crystalline bottle-green water. 
Lord Lamerton had put in trout, and the fish grew there 
to a great size, but were too wary to be caught. The side 
of the quarry to the south shelved rapidly into the water, 
and the fisherman standing on the slope with his rode was 
visible to the trout. They were too cautious to approach, 
and too well fed with the midges that hovered over the 
water to care to bite. 

The north face of the quarry — that is the face that 
looked to the sun — was quite precipitous ; it rose to the 
same height above the water that it descended beneath it. 
Over the edge hung bushes of may that wreathed the gray 
rocks in spring with snow as of the past winter, and in 
winter with scarlet berries, reminiscences of the fire of lost 
summer. Where the 'may-bushes did not monopolise 
the top, there the heath and heather hung their wiry 
branches and grew to brakes, and the whortleberry — the 
vaccinium — formed a fringe of glossy leafage in June and 
July rich with purple berries, and in autumn dotted with 
fantastic scarlet, where a capricious leaf had caught a 
touch of frost that had spared its fellows. 

Down a rocky cranny fell a dribbling stream, the drain- 
age of the wood above ; in summer it was but a distillation, 
sufficient to moisten the beds of moss and fern that rankly 
grew on the hedges beneath it, and in winter never attaining 
sufficient volume to dislodge the vegetation it nourished. 

To the ledges thus moistened choice ferns had retreated 
as to cities of refuge from the rapacity of collectors, who 
rive away these delicate creatures regardless what damage is 
done them, indifferent whether they kill in the process, con- 
sidering only the packing of them off in hampers for sale or 
barter, and in many places exterminating the raresi and 
most graceful ferns ; but here, with a gulf of deep water 


ARM1NELL. 


25 


between themselves and their pursuers, the parsley and 
maiden-hair ferns throve and tossed their fronds in 
security and insolence. 

It was marvellous to see how plants luxuriated in this old 
abandoned quarry, how they seized on it, as squatters on 
no-man’s land, and multiplied and grew wanton and revelled 
there ; how the hart’s tongue grew there to enormous size, 
and remained, unbrowned by frost, throughout the winter ; 
how the crane’s bill bloomed to Christmas, and scented the 
air around, and the strawberry fruited out of season and 
reason. 

By what fatality did the butterflies come there in such 
numbers ? Was it that they delighted in dancing over the 
placid mirror admiring themselves therein ? After a few 
gyrations they inevitably dipped their wings and were lost ; 
perhaps they mistook their gay reflections for inviting 
flowers, or perhaps, like Narcissus, they fell in love with 
their own likenesses, and, stooping to kiss, were caught. 

In summer butterflies were always to be found hovering 
over or floating on the surface, but they hovered or floated 
only for a while, presently a ring was formed in the glassy 
surface, a ring that widened and multiplied itself — the 
butterfly was gone, and a trout the better for it. 

About six feet of soil, in some places more, in others less, 
appeared in sections above the quarry-edge, that is to say, 
above the rock. It was quite possible to trace the primi- 
tive surface of the pre-histoiic earth, much indented ; but 
these indentations had been filled in by accumulations of 
humus, so that the upper turf was almost of a level. 

Where rock ended and soil began, the jackdaws had 
worked for themselves caves and galleries in which they 
lived a communal life, and multiplied prodigiously. A pair 
of hawks bred there as well, spared by express order of 
Lord Lamerton, but viewed with bitter animosity by the 
keepers ; also a colony of white owls, all on tolerable terms, 


2 6 


ARMINELL. 


keep'ng their distances, avoiding social intercourse, very 
much like the classes among mankind. These- owls also 
would have perished, nailed to the stable doors or the 
keeper’s wall, had not his lordship extended protection to 
them likewise. The kingfishers in the Ore were becoming 
fewer, the keepers waged war on them also, because they 
interfered with the fish. Lord Lamerton did not know this, 
or he would have held his protecting hand over their 
amethystine heads. 

The cliff was ribbed horizontally, the harder bands of 
stratification standing forth as shelves on which lodged the 
crumbling of the more friable beds, and the leaves that 
sailed down from the autumn trees above. On these ledges 
a few bushes and a stunted Scotch pine grew. The latter 
grappled with the rock, holding to it with its red-brown roots 
like the legs of a gigantic spider. 

At the west end, on a level with the topmost shelf of 
rock, just beneath where the earth buried the surface of 
rock, was a cave artificially constructed, at the time when 
the lime was worked, as a refuge for the miners when blast- 
ing. 

Formerly a path had existed leading to this cave, but 
now the path was gone — scarce a trace survived. The 
owls, calculating on the inaccessibility of the grot to man, 
had taken possession of it, and bred there. 

“ I am glad I came here,” said Arminell. “ In this 
lovely, lonely spot one can worship God better than in a 
stuffy church, pervaded with the smell of yellow-soap, of 
clean linen, and the bergamot of oiled heads, and the 
peppermint the clerk sucks. Here one has the air full of 
the incense of the woods, the pines exuding resin in the 
sun, the oak-leaves exhaling their aroma, and the ferns, 
fragrant with the sea-like stimulating odour. I am weary of 
that hum-drum which constitutes to mamma the law and aim 
of life. We may be all — as Jingles says — steeped in syrup, 


ARMINELL. 


27 


but it is the syrup of hum-drum that crystallizes about us. 
after having extracted from us and dismissed all individual 
flavour, like the candied fruit in a box, where currants, 
greengage, apricot, pear— all taste alike. We are so 
saturated with the same syrup that we all lead the same 
saccharine existences, have the same sweet thoughts, utter 
the same sugary words, and have not an individualizing 
smack and aroma among us. Mamma is the very incarna- 
tion of routine. She talks to her guests on what she thinks 
will interest them, got up for the occasion out of magazines 
and reviews. These magazines save her and the like of her 
a world of trouble. The aristocrats of the moon, according 
to Jingles, sent their heads forth in pursuit of knowledge; 
we have other peculiar heads sent to us stuffed with the 
forced meat of knowledge, and wrapped in the covers of 
magazines. So much for my mother. As for my father, 
he neither takes in nor gives vent to ideas. He presents 
prizes at schools, opens institutes, attends committees, sits 
on boards, presides at banquets ; occasionally votes, but 
never speaks in the House ; his whole circle of interests is 
made up of highways, asylums and county bridges. In 
olden times, witches drew circles and set about them skulls 
and daggers, toads and braziers, and within these circles 
wrought necromancy. My father’s circle is that of hum- 
drum, set round with county and parochial institutions, with 
the sanitary arrangements carefully considered, and without 
the magic circle he works — nothing.” 

She was standing at the west end of the quarry, looking 
along the edge of the precipice, on her left. 

“ I wonder,” she mused, “ whether it would be feasible to 
reach the owls.” 

Filled with this new ambition, she thought no more of 
the shortcomings of her father and step-mother. 

“ It would be possible, by keeping a cool head,” she 
said. 


28 


ARMINELL. 


“ I should like to see what an owl’s nest is like, and in 
that cave I can pay my Sunday devotions.” 

The shelf was not broad enough to allow of any one 
walking on it unsupported even with a cool head. 

In places, indeed, it broadened, and there lay a cushion 
of grass, but immediately it narrowed to a mere indication. 
The distance was not great, from whence Arminell stood, 
to the cave, some twenty-five feet, and a slip would entail a 
fall into the water beneath. 

As the girl stood considering the possibilities and the 
difficulties, sh2 noticed that streamers of ivy hung over the 
edge from the surface of the soil. She could not reach 
these, however, from where she stood. Were she to lay 
hold of them, she might be able to sustain herself whilst 
stepping along the ledge, just as if she were supported by a 
pendent rope. 

“I believe it is contrivable,” she said; “I see where the 
ivy springs at the root of an elder tree. I can find or cut a 
crooked stick, and thus draw the strands to me. How 
angry and indignant mamma would be, were she to see what 
lam about.” 

She speedily discovered a suitable stick, and with its 
assistance drew the pendent branches towards her. Then, 
laying hold of them, she essayed an advance on the shelf. 
The ivy-ropes were toughs and tenacious in their rooting 
into the ground. She dragged at them, jerked them, and 
they did not yield. She grasped them in her left hand, and 
cautiously stepped forward. 

At first she had a ledge of four inches in width to rest 
her feet on, but the rock, though narrow, was solid, and by 
leaning her weight well on the ivy, and advancing on the 
tips of her feet, she succeeded, not without a flutter of heart, 
in passing to a broad patch of turf, where she was compara- 
tively safe, and where, still clinging to the ivy, she drew a 
long breath. 


ARMINELL. 


2 9 


The water, looked down on from above, immediately be- 
neath her was ]plue ; only in the shadows, where it did not 
reflect the light, was it bottle-green. 

There was not a ripple on it. She had not dislodged a 
stone. She turned her eyes up the bank. She had no fear 
of the ropes failing her ; they would not be sawn through, 
because they swung over friable earth, not jagged rock. 

“Allons, avangons,” said Arminell, with a laugh. She 
was excited, pleased with herself — she had broken out of 
the circle of humdrum. ? 

The ledge was wide, where she stood, and she held to 
the rope to keep her from giddiness, rather than to sustain 
her weight. 

After a few further steps, she paused. The shelf failed 
altogether for three feet, but beyond the gap was a terrace 
matted with cistus and ablaze with flower. Arminell’s first 
impulse was to abandon her enterprize as hazardous beyond 
reason, but her second was to dare the further danger, and 
make a spring to the firm ground. 

“This is the difference between me and my lady,” said 
Arminell. “ She — and my lord likewise — will not risk a 
leap — moral, social, or religious.” 

Then with a rush of impetuosity and impatience, she 
swung herself across the gap, and landed safely on the bed 
of cistus. 

“ Would Giles ever be permitted the unconventional ? ” 
asked Arminell. “ What a petit-maitre he will turn out.” 

The Hon. Giles Inglett, her half-brother, aged ten, was, 
as already said, the only son of Lord Lamerton and heir- 
apparent to the barony. 

From the cistus patch she crept, still clinging to the ivy, 
along the ledge that now bore indications of the path once 
formed on it, and presently, with a sense of defiance of 
danger, allowed herself to look down into the still water. 

“ After all, if I did go down, it would not be very dread- 


30 


ARMINELL. 


ful — it is a reversed heaven. I would spoil my gown, but 
what of that ? I have my allowance, and can spoil as many 
gowns as I choose within my margin. I wonder — would a 
fall from my social terrace be as easy as one from this — and 
lead to such trifling and reparable consequences ? ” 

Then she reached the platform of the cave, let go the 
ivy-streamers, and entered the grotto. 

The entrance was just high enough for Arminell to pass 
in without stooping. The depth of the cave was not great, 
ten feet. The sun shone in, making the nook cheerful and 
warm. Again Arminell looked down at the pond. 

“ How different the water seems according to the position 
from which we look at it. Seen from one point it blazes 
with reflected light, and laughs with brilliance ; seen from 
another it is infinitely sombre, light-absorbing, not light- 
reflecting. It is so perhaps with the world, and poor 
Jingles contemplates it from an unhappy point.” 

She seated herself on the floor at the mouth of the cave, 
and leaned her back against the side, dangling one foot over 
the edge of the precipice. 

“ The best of churches, the most inspiring shrine for holy 
thoughts — O how lucky, I have in my pocket Gaboriau’s 
‘ Gilded Clique ! ’ ” 

She wore a pretty pink dress with dark crimson velvet 
trimmings, but the brightest point of colour about Arminell 
was the blood-coloured cover of the English version of the 
French romance of rascality and crime. 

Arminell had lost her mother at an age at which she 
could not remember her. The girl had been badly brought 
up, by governesses unequal to the task of forming the mind 
and directing the conscience of a self-willed intelligent girl. 

She had changed her governesses often, and not invari- 
ably for the better, i me indulged and flattered her, and 
set her cap at Lord Lamerion. She had to be dismissed. 
Then came a methodical creature, eminently conscientious, 


AR MI NELL. 3 1 

so completely a piece of animated clockwork, so incapable 
of acting or even thinking out of a set routine, that she 
drove Arrninell into sullen revolt. After her departure, a 
young lady from Girton arrived, who walked with long 
strides, wore a pince-nez, was primed with slang, and held 
her nose on high to keep her pince-nez in place. She was 
dismissed because she whistled, but not before her influence, 
the most mischievous of all, had left its abiding impress on 
the character of the pupil. 

This governess laughed at conventionalities, such as are 
the safeguards of social life, and sneered at the pruderies of 
feminine modesty. Her tone was sarcastic and sceptical. 

Then came a lady of good manners, but of an infinitely 
feeble mind, who wore a large fringe to conceal a forehead 
as retreating as that of the Neanderthal man. Arrninell 
found her a person of infinite promise and no achievement. 
She undertook to teach Greek, algebra, and comparative 
anatomy, but could not spell “ rhododendron." 

When Lord Lamerton had married again, the new wife 
shrank from exercising authority over the wayward girl, and 
sought to draw her to her by kindness. But Armined 
speedily gauged the abilities of her step-mother, and became 
not actively hostile, but indifferent to her. Lady Lamerton 
was not a person to provoke hostility. 

Thus the girl had grown up with mind unformed, judg- 
ment undisciplined, feelings impetuous and under no con- 
straint, and with very confused notions of right and wrong. 
She possessed by nature a strong will, and this had been 
toughened by resistance where it should have been yielded 
to, and non-resistance where it ought to have been firmly 
opposed. 

She had taken a class that Sunday in the school, as well 
as on the preceding Sunday, only at Lady Lamer ton's 
urgent request, because the school-mistress was absent on a 
holiday. 


32 


ARMINELL. 


And now Armineli, who had come to the Owl’s Nest to 
pay her devotions to heaven, performed them by reading 
Gaboriau’s ** Gilded Clique.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


A PRAYER-RAFT. 

How long Arminell had been resting in her sunny nook 
above the water, reading the record of luxury, misery and 
vice, she did not know, for she became engrossed in the 
repulsive yet interesting tale, and the time slipped away, 
unperceived. 

She was roused from her reading by the thought that 
suddenly occurred to her, quite unconnected with the story, 
that she had let go the strands of ivy when she reached the 
cave, — and in a moment her interest in the “ Gilded 
Clique” ceased and she became alarmed about her own 
situation. In her delight at attaining the object of her 
ambition, she had cast aside the streamers without a 
thought that she might need them again, and they had 
reverted to their original position, beyond her reach. She 
could not venture along the strip of turf without their sup- 
l ort, and she had not the crook with, her, wherewith to 
rake them back within reach of her hand. 

What was to be done? The charm of the situation 
was gone. Its novelty had ceased to please. Her elation 
at her audacity in venturing on the “path perilous” had 
subsided. To escape unassisted was impossible', and to 
call for assistance useless in a place so rarely visited. 

“ It does not much matter, said Arminell ; “ I shall not 
have to spend a night among tne owls. My lady when she 
misses me vviii send out a search-party, and Jingles will 

c 


34 


ARMINELL. 


direct them whither to go for me. I will return to my 
book.” 

But Arminell could not recover her interest in the story 
of the “ Gilded Clique.” She was annoyed at her lack of 
prudence, for it had not only subjected her to imprison- 
ment, but had placed her in a position somewhat ridiculous. 
She threw down the book impatiently and bit her lips. 

“ This is a lesson to me,” she said, “ not to make rash 
excursions into unknown regions without retaining a clue 
which will enable me to retrace my steps to the known. 
Caesar may have been a hero when he burnt his ships, but 
his heroism was next akin to folly.” 

She sat with her hands in her lap, with a clouded face, 
musing on the chance of her speedy release. Then she 
laughed, “Like Jingles, I am in a wrong position, but un- 
like him, I am here by my own foolhardiness. He was 
carried by my lord into the eagle’s nest ; like Sinbad, out 
of the valley of diamonds. But in the valley of diamonds 
there were likewise serpents. My lord swooped down on 
poor Jingles, caught him up, and deposited him in his nest 
on the heights for the young eagles to pull to pieces.” 

As she was amusing herself with this fancy, she observed 
a man by the waterside at the east or further end of the 
quarry, engaged in launching a primitive raft which he 
drew out of a bed of alder. The raft consisted of a couple 
of hurdles lashed together, on which an old pig-sty or 
stable door was laid. Upon this platform the man stationed 
himself when the raft was adrift, and with a long oar sculled 
himself into the middle of the pond. 

What was his object? Had he seen Arminell and was 
he coming to her assistance, concluding that she could be 
rescued in no other fashion ? On further observation 
Arminell convinced herself that he had not seen her and 
knew nothing of her predicament and distress. 

What was he about to do ? To fish ? 


ARMINELL. 


35 


No — not to fish. 

When the raft floated in the middle of the tarn, the man 
laid down his oar, knelt on the board and began to pray. 

“ Why — ! ” exclaimed the girl ; “ that is Captain Sal- 
tren, Jingles’ father.” 

Captain Stephen Saltren, master of the manganese mine, 
was a tall man, rather gaunt and thin, and loosely com- 
pacted at the joints, with dark hair, high cheek-bones and 
large, deeply-sunken eyes. His features were irregular and 
ill cut — yet it was impossible to look at his face without 
being impressed with the thought that he was no ordinary 
man. His hands, though roughened and enlarged by 
work, had long fingers, the indication of a nervous tempera- 
ment. He had, moreover, one of those flexible voices 
which go far towards making a man an orator. He was 
unaware of the value of his organ, he was devoid of skill in 
using it ; but it was an impressive voice when used in times 
of deep emotion, thrilling those who heard it and sweeping 
them into sympathy with the speaker. His eyes were those 
of a mystic, looking into a far-off sphere, esteeming the 
world of sense as a veil, a painted film, disturbing, imped- 
ing distinct vision of the sole realities that existed in the 
world beyond. 

There was velvety softness in his dark eyes, and gentle- 
ness in his flexible mouth, and yet the least observant 
person speaking with him could see that fire was ready to 
leap out of those soft eyes on provocation, and that the 
mouth could set with rigid determination when his pre- 
judices were touched. 

The forehead of the man was of unusual height. He 
had become partly bald, had shed some of the hair above 
the brow, and this had given loftiness to his forehead. 
There were hollows between his temples and eye-brows; 
his head was lumpy and narrow. Altogether it was an ill- 
balanced, but an interesting head. 


3 6 


ARM I NELL. 


The mystic, who at one time was a prominent feature in 
religious life, has almost disappeared from among us, gone 
utterly out of the cultured classes, gone from among the 
practical mercantile classes, going little by little from the 
lower beds of life, not expelled by education but by the 
materialism that penetrates every realm of human existence. 
In time the mystic will have become as extinct as the dodo, 
the great auk, and the Caleb Balderstones. But there are 
mystics still — especially when there is a strain of Celtic 
blood, and of this class of beings was Stephen Saltren. 

The captain was in trouble, and whenever he was in 
trouble or unhappy he had recourse to prayer, and he 
prayed with most disengagement on his raft. He came to 
the quarry when his mind was disturbed and his heart 
agitated, thrust himself out from land, and prayed where he 
believed himself to be unobserved and unlikely to be 
interrupted. 

'l'he cause of his unrest on this occasion was the threat 
Lord Lamerton had uttered of closing the manganese 
mine. This mine had its adit, crushing mill and washing 
floors at but a short distance from the great house. About 
fifteen years previous, a mine had been worked on the 
estate that yielded so richly, that with the profits, Lord 
Lamerton had been able to clear off some mortgages. 
That lode was worked out. It had been altogether an 
extraordinary one, bunching, as it is termed, into a great 
mass of solid manganese, but this bunch, when worked 
out, ended without a trace of continuance. Then, as Lord 
Lamerton was assured, another came to the surface in the 
hill behind the mansion, and as he was in want of money, 
he reluctantly permitted the mine to be opened within a 
rifle shot of his house. The workings were out of sight, 
hidden by a plantation, and manganese mines make no 
great heaps of unsightly deposit ; nevertheless, the mine 
was inconveniently near the place. It did not yield as it 


ARMINELL. 


37 


had promised, or as the experts had pretended it promised, 
and Lord Lamerton had lost all hope of making money by 
it. The vein was followed, but it never £ ‘ bunched.” 
Foreign competition affected the market, English man- 
ganese was under-sold, and Wheal Perseverance, as the 
mine was called, did not pay for the “ working.” Lord 
Lamerton annually lost money on it. Then he was in- 
formed that the lode ran under ' rleigh gardens, and 
promised freely to “bunch” under the mansion. That is 
to say, he was asked to allow his house to be undermined. 
This decided his lordship, and he announced that the mine 
must be abandoned. Bunch or no bunch, he was not going 
to have his old place tunnelled under and brought about 
his ears, on the chance — the chimerical chance — of a fe"- 
thousand pounds’ worth of metal being extracted from the 
lock on which it stood. 

To Lord Lamerton his determination seemed right and 
reasonable. The land was his. The royalties were his ; 
the house was his. Every man may do what he will with 
his own. If he has a penny in his pocket, he is at liberty 
to spend or to hoard it as he deems best. 

But this decision of his lordship threatened ruin or 
something like ruin to a good many men who had lived on 
the mine, to families whereof the father worked under- 
ground, and the children above washing ore on the floors. 
The cessation of the mining would throw all these out of 
employ. It was known to the miners that manganese mines 
were everywhere unprofitable, and were being abandoned. 
Wl.e e then should they look for employment? 

It was open to bachelors to migrate to America, but what 
were the married men to do? The captain would feel the 
stoppage ot the mine most of all. He had kept the 
accounts of the output, had paid the wages, and sold the 
metal. The miners might, indeed, take temporary work on 
the new line in course of construction, but that meant a 


3 « 


ARMINELL. 


change of life from one that was regular, whilst living in 
settled homes, to a wandering existence, to makeshift 
housing, separation from their families, and to association 
with demoralising and lawless companions. The captain, 
however, had not this chance within reach. He could not 
migrate, because he possessed the little house in which he 
lived, together with an acre of garden ground beside it, 
which his father had enclosed and reclaimed. Moreover, 
he was not likely to find work which gave him a situation of 
authority and superiority. Instead of being a master he 
must be content — if he found employ — to work as a 
servant. Hitherto, he had engaged and dismissed the 
hands, now he must become a hand — and be glad to be 
one— liable to dismissal. 

It was natural that the men, and especially Saltren, should 
feel keenly and resent the closing of the mine. People see 
things as they affect themselves, and appreciate them only 
as they relate to their own affairs. I knew a man named 
Balhatchet who patented a quack medicine which he called 
his Heal-all, and this man never could be brought to see 
that the Fall of Man was a disaster to humanity, for, he 
argued, if there had been no fall, then no sickness, and 
therefore no place for Balhatchet’s Heal-all. 

According to “ The Spectator,” when the news reached 
Ldndon that the King of France was dead, “ Now we 
shall have fish cheaper,” was the greeting the tidings 
evoked. The miners were angry with the bleachers, be- 
cause they used German manganese instead of that raised 
in England, and angry with the shippers for bringing it 
across the sea. But above all, at this time, they were inclined 
to resent the action of Lord Lamerton in closing the mine, 
for by so doing he was, as they put it, snatching the bread 
out of their hungry mouths, whilst himself eating cake. 
They did not believe that undermining the great house 
would disturb its foundations. That was a mere excuse. 


ARMINELL. 


39 


How could his lordship be sure that undermining would 
crack his walls till he bad tried it ?• And — supposing they 
did settle, what of that ? They might be rebuilt. The 
men had been told that his lordship had painted the north 
wall with impenetrable, anti-damp preparation, because on 
that side of the house the paper in the rooms became 
mildewed. If there was damp, what better means of drying 
the house than undermining it? Why should his lordship 
send many pounds to London for damp-excluding paint, 
when by spending the money in Orleigh he might so drain 
the soil through a level under the foundations that no 
moisture could possibly rise ? 

Lord Lamerton had made a great deal of money out of 
the first mine. He had provided good cottages for his 
tenants, the workmen, but so much the worse if they were to 
be turned out of them. 

The mine had been christened Wheal Perseverance, and 
what does perseverance mean, but going on with what is 
begun ? If his lordship had not intended to carry on the 
mine indefinitely, he should not have called it Wheal Per- 
severance. When he gave it that name he as much as pro- 
mised to keep it going always, and to stop it now nas a 
breach of faith. Was it endurable that Lord Lamerton 
should close. the mine? Who had put the manganese in 
the rock ? Was it Lord Lamerton ? What had the metal 
been run there for but for the good of mankind, that it 
might be extracted and utilized? God had carried the lode 
under Orleigh Park before a Lamerton was thought of. 
Was it justifiable that one man, through his aristocratic 
selfishness, should interfere with the public good, should 
contravene the^ arrangements of the Creator? In the 
gospel the man who hid his talent was held up to condem- 
nation, but here was a nobleman who sat down upon the 
talent belpnging to a score of hard-working and necessitous 
men, desirous of extracting it, and refused to permit them 


40 


ARM I NELL. 


to do what God had commanded. Was there not a fable 
about a dog in the manger ? Was not his lordship a very 
dog in a manger, neither using the manganese himself, nor 
allowing those who desired to dig it out to put a pick into 
the ground and disturb it ? Maybe there was a “ bunch ” 
under the state drawing-room large enough to support a 
score of families foi three years, the men in meat and 
broadcloth, the women in velvets and jockey-club essence. 
Lord Lamerton and Lady Lamerton begrudged them these 
necessaries of life. The laws of the land, no doubt, were 
on the side of the nobleman, but the law of God on that of 
the labourer. The laws were imposed on the people by a 
House of Lords and the Queen, and therefore they would 
agitate for the abolition of an hereditary aristocracy and 
keep their hats on when next the National Anthem was 
played. 

There were more mixed up in the matter than his lord- 
ship. Lord Lamerton did nothing without consulting the 
agent, Mr. Macduff. The abandonment of the mine was 
Macduff’s doing. The reason was known to every one — 
Macduff was under the control of his wife. Mrs. Macduff 
was offended because the school children did not curtsey 
and touch their caps when she drove through the village in 
her victoria. 

The rector also had a finger in this particular pie. He 
bore a spite against Captain Saltren, because the captain 
was not a churchman. Not a word had been said about 
stopping the lime-quarry. Oh no ! of course not, for Cap- 
tain Tubb taught in the Sunday-school. If Stephen .Saltren 
had taken a class, nothing would have been said about dis- 
continuing the mine. Therefore the miners resolved to join 
the Liberation Society and make an outcry for the dis- 
establishment of the Church. 

So the men argued — we will not say reasoned, and that 
is no caricature of their arguments, not reasonings, in smdl:^- 


ARMINELL. 


41 


cases. The uneducated man is always a suspicious man. 
He never believes in the reasons alleged, these are disguises 
to hide the true springs of action. 

When his lordship was told how incensed the mineps 
were, he made light of the matter. Pshaw ! fiddlesticks ! 
He was not going to have his dear old Elizabethan home 
in which he was born, and which had belonged to the 
Ingletts before they were peers, tumbled about his ears like 
a pack of cards, just because there was a chance of finding 
three ha’porth of manganese under it. The mine had been 
a nuisance for some years. The standing up to their knees 
in water had been injurious to the health of the girls, many 
of whom had died of decline. Wheal Perseverance was a 
bad school of morals, lads and lasses worked together there, 
and necessarily in a semi-nude condition. The school- 
master and the Government Inspector had complained that 
the attendance at school was bad and irregular, for the chil- 
dren could earn money on the washing floors, and did nor 
see the fun of sitting at desks earning nothing. 

The miners had been a constant source of annoyance, 
they were all of them poachers, and had occasional fights 
with the keepers. The presence of the miners entailed the 
retention of extra keepers to protect the game, so that in 
this way also the mine proved expensive. Besides, the 
manganese dirtied the stream that flowed through the 
grounds, made it of a hideous tawny red colour, and spoiled 
the fishing not only in it, but in the river Ore, into which it 
discharged its turbjd waters. 

The miners were all radicals and dissenters, and he would 
be glad to be rid of them. 

So every question has its two sides, equally plausible. 

Stephen Saltren had been from boyhood shy, silent and 
self-contained. His only book of study was the Bible, and 
his imagination was fired by its poetry and its apocalyptic 
visions. His thoughts were cast in Scriptural forms ; his 


42 


ARMINELL. 


early companions had nick-named him the Methodist Par- 
son. But Saltren had never permanently attached him- 
self to any denomination. The Church was too ceremoni- 
ous, he turned from her in dislike. He rambled from sect 
to sect seeking a dwelling-place, and finding only a tempor- 
ary lodging. For a while he was all enthusiasm, and 
flowed with grace, then the source of unction ran dry, and 
he attributed the failure to deficiencies in the community 
he had joined, left it to recommence the same round of 
experiences and encounter the same disappointments in 
another. As a young man he had worked with his father 
at the original mine, Wheal Eldorado, and on his father’s 
death, had continued to live in the house his father had 
built on land he had appropriated. He continued to work 
at Eldorado, became captain in his father’s room, and when 
Eldorado was exhausted, directed the works of Wheal Per- 
severance. Every one spoke highly of Stephen Saltren, as 
a steady, conscientious man, truthful and of unimpeachable 
honesty. But no one quite understood Saltren, he made 
no friends, he sought none ; and he left on all with whom 
he came in contact, the impression that he was a man of 
very abnormal character. 

Whilst Adam slept, the help-mate was formed and set by 
him. When he opened his eyes, it was with a start and 
with something like terror that he saw Eve at his side. He 
could not but believe he was still a prey to dreams. Ever 
since the first meeting love has come as a surprise on the 
sons of Adam, has come on them when least prepared to 
resist its advance, and has never been regarded in the first 
moment as a grave reality. 

Thousands of years have rolled their course, and love 
has remained unchanged, like the rose and the nightingale, 
neither developing forward to some higher form of activity, 
nor degenerating to one less generous. 

The diseases pass through endless modifications, varying 


ARMTNELL. 


43 


in phenomena with every generation, changing their 
symptoms, disguising their nature, but the fever of love is 
always one and runs the identical course. Enthusiasts 
have sought to stifle it in hair-cloth, and reduce its virulence 
by vaccination with foreign matter, but it resists every effort 
to subdue it. Society has attempted to discipline it and 
turn it to practical ends. But love is a fire which will con- 
sume all bonds and snap them, and is only finally ex- 
* tinguished with a handful of clay, when the breast in which 
it has burnt is reduced, ashes to ashes, and dust to 
dust. 

Unexpectedly, unaccountably, the fever laid hold of 
Stephen Saltren. He lost his heart to Marianne Welsh, 
who had been servant at the park, a handsome girl, with 
refinement of manner beyond her class. 

He courted her for a month. She had left the great 
house for some unexplained reason ; some folks said she 
was a liar, and had been dismissed because found out to be 
unreliable ; others said she left because she was so good- 
looking that the rest of the maids were jealous of her and 
worried her out of her situation. 

Whilst courting Marianne, Saltren was a charmed man. 
His vision of the spiritual world became clouded, and he 
was not sensible of the loss. A new world of unutterable 
delight, and of ideal beauty, clothed in rainbow colours and 
bathed in brilliant light, had unfurled before him and now 
occupied his perspective. 

The acquaintanceship led at once to marriage. There 
was no delay. There was no occasion for delay. Saltren 
possessed his own house and land, and was in receipt of a 
good salary. The marriage ensued ; and then another 
change came over Saltren. The new world of love and 
beauty, so real, faded as the mirage of the desert, disclos- 
ing desert and dead bones. 

Seven months after the marriage, Marianne became the 


44 


ARMINELL. 


mother of a boy, and only Stephen knew that the son was 
not his own. A cruel act of treachery had been committed. 
Marianne had taken his name, not because she loved him, 
but to hide her own dishonour. 

When he knew how he had been deceived, a barb 
entered Stephen’s heart, and he was never after free from its 
rankle. A fire was kindled in his veins that smouldered 
and gnawed its way outwards, certain eventually to flare 
forth in some sudden and unexpected outbreak. He be- 
came more reserved, more dreamy, more fantastic than 
before his marriage, and more of an enigma to those with 
whom he associated. 

“ Let the babe be christened Giles Inglett,” said Mari- 
anne, V that has a distinguished sound, none of your vulgar 
Jacks, and Harrys, and Bills — besides, it will be taken as a 
compliment at the park, and may be of benefit to the little 
fellow afterwards.” 

Saltren shrugged his shoulders. 

“ It is your child, call it what you will.” 

The boy was brought up by Stephen as his son, none 
doubted the paternity. But Saltren never kissed the infant, 
never showed the child love, took no interest in the wel- 
fare of the youth. To his wife he was cold, stern and 
formal. He allowed her to see that he could never forgive 
the wrong that had been done him. 

So much for the past of Captain Stephen Saltren. Now, 
on this spring Sunday morning, Arminell Inglett watched 
the man at his devotions on the raft. She allowed him to 
proceed with them undisturbed for some time; but she 
could not spend the whole day in the owl’s nest. Saltren 
must be roused from his spiritual exercises and raptures. 
He must assist her — he must surely have ropes at his dis- 
posal, and could call men to help in her release. 

She called him by name 

Her call was re-echoed from the rocky walls of the 


ARMINELL. 45 

quarry. Saltren looked up, looked about, and remained 
expectant, with uplifted hands and eyes. 

Then, half impatiently, half angrily, Arminell flung the 
crimson covered novel of Gaboriau far out into the air, to 
fall on or near Saltren, in the hopes of directing his atten- 
tion to her position. 

He saw the fluttering book in the air, and stretched 
forth his hands to receive it. The book whirled about, 
expanded, turned over, shut, and shot down into the pond, 
where it floated one moment with its red cover upwards. 
Captain Saltren was engrossed in interest to see and to 
secure the book ; he sculled towards it, stooped over the 
water to grasp it, lost balance, and fell forward, and in his 
effort to recover the volume and save himself from immer- 
sion, touched it, and the book went under the raft and 
disappeared. 

The attempt to attract attention to herself had failed, and 
Arminell uttered an exclamation of vexation. 


CHAPTER V. 


INFECTION. 

A touch on Arminell’s shoulder made her turn with a start. 
She saw behind her an old woman who had approached 
along the ledge, unobserved, supporting herself by the 
strands of ivy in the same manner as herself. Arminell 
had been standing leaning against the rock, her eyes and 
attention occupied with Captain Saltren, and so had not 
noticed the stealthy progress of the woman. 

“ See here, miss,” said the new arrival, “ I have come to 
help you in the proper way. Lord love y’ what’s the good 
o’ calling to that half mazed man there ? By the road you 
came, by that you must return. Here be ivy bands enough 
for both. Take half yourself and follow me, or if you’d 
rather, go on before. Don’t look at your feet, look ahead.” 

“ Who are you ? ” asked Arminell in surprise. 

“ Won’t you accept help till you know who she is that 
offers it?” asked the woman with a laugh. “Do you 
object to lean on a stick till you know the name of the tree 
whence it was cut? I’m not ashamed of what I’m called, 
I’m Patience Kite, that lives in the thatched cottage under 
the wood at the end of the quarry. I saw how you came 
to this place, and how you have thrown your book at the 
captain, because he looked every way but the right one 
when he was called. There’s perversity in all things, miss, 
as you’ll discover when you’re a bit older. Them as we call 


ARMINELL. 47 

to come to us don’t look our way, and them as we ain’t 
thinking about offer us the helping hand.” 

Arminell took the proffered ivy ropes, and began to re- 
trace her steps along the face of the precipice, but was 
unable, whilst so. doing, to resist the temptation to look and 
see if Captain Saltren had as yet observed her, but she saw 
that he was still diving his arms into the water after the 
sunken volume, and was unconscious that any one watched 
him. 

“ Hold to my gown, it is coarse, but the better to stay 
you with,” said the woman. “ Do not look round, keep 
fast with the right hand to the ivy, and clutch me with your 
left. What a comical bringing together of them whom God 
has put asunder that would be if you and I were to be 
found in death grappled together in the quarry pond ! ” 

Slowly, cautiously, Arminell followed her guide and 
finally reached the firm bank. 

“ Now then,” said Patience, “you can come and rest in 
my cottage. It is hard by. I’ll wipe a chair for you. As 
you wanted to see the owl’s nest, perhaps you mayn’t object 
to visit the house of the white witch.” 

Arminell hesitated. She was inclined to return home, 
but felt that it would seem ungracious to decline the offer 
of the woman who had assisted her out of her difficulties. 

“ Look yonder,” mocked Patience, pointing to the water, 
“ the captain is at his prayers again. I wonder, now, what 
he took that book to be you thro wed at him, and your voice 
to be that called him ? He’ll make a maze o’ queer fancies 
out of all, I reckon.” 

“ Does Mr. Saltren often come here ? ” 

“When the shoe pinches.” 

“ I do not understand you, Mrs. Kite.” 

“ No, I’ll be bound you do not. How can you under 
stand the pinching and pain o’ others, when you’ve never 
felt pinch or pain yourself ? Such as lie a-bed in swans’ 


4 8 


ARMINELL. 


down wonder what keeps them awake that couches on 
nettles.” 

“ But what has this to do with Captain Saltren and his 
prayers ? ” 

“ Everything,” answered the woman ; “ you don’t ask for 
apples when your lap is full. Those that suffer and are in 
need open their mouths. But whether aught comes to 
them for opening their mouths is another matter. The 
cuckoo in my clock called, and as none answered, he gave 
it up— so did I.” 

There was a savagery in the woman’s tone that startled 
Arminell, and withal a strangeness in her manner that 
attracted her curiosity. 

“ I will go with you to the cottage for a moment,” she 
said. 

“This is the way,” answered Patience, leading through 
the brake of fern under the oaks. 

Patience Kite was a tall woman, with black hair just 
turning grey, a wrinkled face, and a pointed chin. She had 
lost most of her teeth, and mouthed her words, but spoke 
distinctly. Her nose was like the beak of a hawk; her eyes 
were grey and wild under heavy dark brows. When she 
spoke to Arminell she curtsied, and the curtsey of the gaunt 
creature was grotesque. The girl could not read whether it 
were intended as respectful, or done in mockery. Her 
dress was tidy, but of the poorest materials, much patched. 
She wore no cap ; her abundant hair was heaped on her 
head, but w'as less tidy than her clothing ; it was scattered 
about her face and shoulders. 

Pier cottage was close at hand, very small, built of quarry- 
stone that corroded rapidly with exposure — the air reduced 
it to black dust. The chimney threatened to fall ; it was 
gnawed into on the south-west side like a bit of miee-eaten 
cheese. The thatch was rotten, the rafters w^ere exposed 
and decayed. The walls, bulged out by the thrust of the 


ARMINELL. 


49 


bedroom floor-joists, were lull of rents and out of the per- 
pendicular. 

The place looked so ruinous, so unsafe, that Arminell 
hesitated to enter. 

The door had fallen, because the frame had rotted away. 
Patience led her guest over it into the room. There every- 
thing was tidy and clean. Tidiness and cleanliness were 
strangely combined with ruin and decay. In the window 
was a raven in a cage. 

“ This house is dangerous to live in,” said Arminell. 
“ Does Mr. Macduff not see that repairs are done ? It is 
unfit for human habitation.” 

“ Macduff ! ” scoffed Mrs. Kite. “ Do y’ think that this 
house belongs to his lordship ? It is mine, and because it 
is mine, they cannot force me to leave it, and to go into' the 
workhouse.” 

“ But you are in peril of your life here, the chimney might 
fall and bury you any windy night. The roof might crash in.” 

“ So the sanitary officer says. He has condemned the 
house.” 

“ Then you are leaving ? ” 

“No. He has done his duty. But I am not going to 
turn out.” 

“ Yet surely, Mrs. Kite, if the place is dangerous you will 
not be allowed to remain ? ” 

“ Who can interfere with me ? The board of guardians 
have applied to the petty sessions for an order, and it has 
been granted and served on me.” 

“ Then, of course, you go ? ” 

“No; they can order me to go, but they cannot force 
me to go. The policeman says they can fine me ten 
shillings a day if I remain and defy them. Let them fine 
me. They must next get an order to distrain to get the 
amount. They may sell my furniture, but they won’t be 
able to turn me out.” 


D 


5 ° 


ARMINELL. 


“But why remain in peril of your life? You will be 
crushed under the ruins some stormy night.” 

“ Why remain here ? Because I’ve nowhere else to go 
to. I will not go into the union, and I will not live in a 
house with other folk. I am accustomed to be alone. I 
am not afraid. Here I am at liberty, and I will here die 
rather than lose my freedom.” 

“ You cannot even shut your door.” 

“ I do not need to. I fear nothing, not the sanitary 
officer; he can do nothing.. Not the board of guardians ; 
they can do nothing. Not the magistrates ; they cannot 
touch me .” 1 

“ Have you anything to live on ? ” 

“ I pick up a trifle. I bless bad knees and stop the flow 
of blood, and show where stolen goods are hidden, and tell 
who has ill-wished any one.” 

“You receive contributions from the superstitious.” 

“ I get my living my own way. There is room for all in 
the world.” 

Arminell seated herself in a chair offered her, and looked 
at the raven in its cage, picking at the bars. 

Silence ensued for a few minutes. Patience folded her 
bare brown arms across her bosom, and standing opposite 
the girl, studied her from head to foot. 

“The Honourable Miss Inglett !” she said, and laughed. 
“ Why are you the honourable, and I the common person ? 
Why are you a lady, at ease, well-dressed, and I a poor old 

1 The reader may think this an impossible case. At the present 
moment an old woman in the author’s immediate neighbourhood is 
thus defying all the authorities. They have come to a dead lock. 
She has resisted orders to leave for three years, and is in hourly peril 
of her life. The only person who could expel her is the landlord, who 
happens to be poor, and who says that he cannot rebuild the cottage ; 
the woman who has it on a lease is bound to deliver it over at the end 
of the time in good order, but she u without the means to put the 
cottage in order. Next equinoctial gale may see her crushed to death. 


ARMINELL. 


51 

creature badgered by sanitary officers and board of guar- 
dians, and magistrates, and by my lord, the chairman at 
the petty sessions ? 

Arminell looked wonderingly at her, surprised at her 
strange address. 

“ Because the world is governed by injustice. What had 
you done as a babe, that you should have the gold spoon 
put into your mouth, and why had I the pewter one ? It is 
not only sanitary officers and guardians of the poor against 
me, bullying me, a poor lone widow. Heaven above has 
been dead set against me from the moment I was born. 
I’ve seen the miners truck out ore and cable ; now a truck- 
load of metal, then one of refuse ; one to be refined, the 
other to be rejected. It is so in life ; we are run out of 
the dark mines of nothingness into light, and some of us 
are all preciousness and some all dross. But do you know 
this, Miss Arminell, they turned out heaps on heaps of 
refuse from the copper mines, and now they have abandoned 
the copper to work the refuse heaps ? They find them rich 
— in what do you suppose ? In arsenic.” 

“ You have had much trouble in your life ? ” asked 
Arminell, not knowing what to say to this strange, bitter 
woman. 

“ Much trouble ! ” Patience curtsied. She unlaced her 
arms, and used her hands as she spoke, like a French- 
woman. She lacked the words that would express her 
thoughts and enforced and supplemented them with gesture. 
“ Much trouble 1 You shall hear how I have been served. 
My father worked in this old lime quarry till it was aban- 
doned, and when it stopped, then he was out of work for 
two months, and he went out poaching, and shot himself 
instead of a pheasant. He was not used to a gun. 
’T wasn’t the fault of the gun. The gun was good enough. 
When he was brought home dead, my mother went into 
one fainting .fit alter another, and I was born ; but she died.”' 


52 


ARMINELL. 


“The quarry was given up, I suppose, because it was 
worked out ? ” said Arminell. 

“ Why did Providence allow it to be worked out so soon? 
Why wasn’t the lime made to run ten feet deeper, three 
feet, one foot would have done it to keep my father alive 
over my birth, and so saved my mother’s life and made me 
a happy woman ? ” 

“ And when your poor mother died ? ” 

“ Then it was bad for poor me. I was left an orphan 
child and was brought up by my uncle, who was a local 
preacher. He wasn’t over-pleased at being saddled wi’ me 
to keep. He served me bad, and didn’t give me enough 
to eat. Once he gave me a cruel beating because I 
wouldn’t say, ‘ Forgive us our trespasses,’ for, said I, 
‘ Heaven has trespassed against me, not I against Heaven.’ 
Why was there not another foot or eighteen inches more 
lime created when it was made, so that my father and 
mother might have lived, and I had a home and not been 
given over to uncle? What I said then, I say now ” — all 
Patience’s fierceness rushed into her eyes. “ Answer me 
Have I been fairly used ? ” She extended her arms, and held 
her hands open, appealing to Arminell for her judgment. 

“ And then ? ” asked the girl, after a long silence, during 
which nothing was heard but the pecking of the raven at 
the bars. 

“And then my uncle bade me unsay my words, but I 
would not Then he swore he would thrash me every day 
till I asked forgiveness. So it came about.” 

“ What came about ? ” 

“ That I was sent to prison.” 

“ Not for profanity ! for what ? ” 

“ For setting fire to his house.” 

“ You ?” 

“Yes, finish the question. Yes, I did; and so I was 
sent to prison.” 


ARMINELL. 


53 


Arminell involuntarily shrank from the woman. 

“ Ah ! I frighten you. But the blame does not attach 
to me.* Why were there not a few inches more lime created 
when the quarry was ordained ? Providence means, I am 
told, fore-seeing. When the world was made I reckon 
it was foreseen that for lack of a little more lime my father 
would shoot himself, and the shock kill my mother, and 
cast me without parents on the hands of a hard uncle, wh< > 
treated me so bad that I was forced to set his thatch in a 
blaze, and so was sent to prison. Providence saw all that 
in the far-off, and held hands and did not lay another hand- 
ful of lime.” 

“ Have you ever been married ? ” asked Arminell, 
startled by the defiance, the rage and revolt in the woman’s 
heart. She asked the question without consideration, in 
the hope of diverting the thoughts of Mrs. Kite into an- 
other channel. 

Patience was silent for a moment, and looked loweringly 
at the young lady, then answered abruptly, “ No — a few 
inches of lime short stopped that.” 

“How did that prevent your marriage? The quarry 
was stopped before you were born.” 

“ Right, and because stopped, my father was shot and I 
became an orphan, and was took by my uncle, and fired 
his house, and was sent to gaol. After that no man cared 
to take to wife a woman who put lighted sticks among the 
thatch. No respectable man would share his name with 
one who had been in prison. But I was a handsome girl 
in my day — and— but there — I will tell you no more. The 
stopping of the quarry did it. If there had been laid at 
bottom a few inches more of lime rock, it would never 
have happened. Where lies the blame ? ” 

“Another quarry was opened,” said Arminell, “that 
where Mr. Tubb is captain.” 

“ True,” answered Patience ; “ but between the closing 


54 


ARMINELL. 


of one and the opening of another, my father bought a gun, 
and went over a hedge with it on a moonlight night, and 
the trigger caught.” • 

Arminell rose. 

“ I have been here for some time,” she said, “ and I 
ought to be on my way home. You will permit me” — she 
felt in her pocket for her purse. 

“No,” said Patience curtly. “You have paid me for 
what I did by listening to my story. But stay — Have you 
heard that if you go to a pixy mound, and take the soil 
chereof and put it on your head, you can see the little 
people, and hear their voices, and know all they say and 
do. You have come here — to this heap of ruin and 
wretchedness,” she stooped and gathered up some of the 
dust off the floor and ashes from the hearth, and threw 
them on the head of Arminell. “I am a witch, they say. 
It is well ; now your eyes and ears are opened to see and 
know and feel with those you never knew of before this 
day — another kind of creatures to yourself — the poor, the 
wretched, the lonely.” 


CHAPTER VI. 


CHILLACOT. 

Arminell Inglett walked* musingly from the cottage ot 
Patience Kite. The vehemence of the woman, the sad 
picture she had unfolded of a blighted life, the look she 
had been given into a heart in revolt against the Divine 
government of the world, united to impress and disturb 
Arminell. 

Questions presented themselves to her which she had 
never considered before. Why were the ways of Heaven 
unequal ? Why, if God created all men of one flesh, and 
breathed into all a common spirit, why were they differently 
equipped for life’s journey? Why were some sent to 
encounter the freezing blast in utter nakedness, and others 
muffled in eider-down? The Norns who spin the threads 
ot men’s lives, spin some of silk and others of tow. The 
Parcae who shovel the lots of men out of bushels of gold, 
dust, and soot, give to some soot only ; they do not trouble 
tnemselves to mix the ingredients before allotting them. 

. As Arminell walked on. revolving in her mind the per- 
plexing question which has ever remained unsolved and 
continues to puzzle and drive to despair those in all ages 
who consider it, she came before the house of Captain 
Saltren. 

The house lay in a narrow glen, so narrow that it was 
lighted and warmed by very little sun.':; A slaty rock rose 
above it, and almost projected over it. This rock, called 


5 « 


ARMINELL. 


the Cleve, was crowned with heather and ivy scrambled 
up it from below. A brook brawled down the glen below 
the house. 

The coombe had been wild and disregarded, a jungle of 
furze and bramble, till Saltren’s father settled in it, and no 
man objecting, enclosed part of the waste, built a house, 
and called it his own. Lord Lamerton owned the manor, 
and might have interfered, or claimed ground-rent, but in 
a former generation much careless good-nature existed 
among landlords, and squatters were suffered to seize on 
and appropriate land that was. regarded of trifling value. 
The former Lord Lamerton perhaps knew nothing of the 
appropriation. His agent was an old, gouty, easy-going 
man who looked into no matters closely, and so the Sal- 
trens became possessed of Chillacot without having any 
title to show for it. By the same process Patience Kite’s 
father had obtained his cottage, and Patience held her 
house on the same tenure as Saltren held Chillacot. 
Usually when settlers enclosed land and built houses, they 
were charged a trifling ground-rent, and they held their 
houses and fields for a term of years or for lives, and the 
holders were bound to keep the dwellings in good repair. 
But, practically, such houses are not kept up, and when 
the leases expire, or the lives fall in the houses fall in also. 
A landlord with such dwellings and tenements on his pro- 
perty is often glad to buy out the holders to terminate the 
disgrace to the place of having in it so many dilapidated 
and squalid habitations. 

Saltren’s house was not in a dilapidated condition ; on 
the contrary, it was neat and in excellent repair. Stephen 
drew’ a respectab’e salary as captain of the manganese mine 
and could affi rd to spend monev 01 th little property of 
which he was proud. He had had the house recently re- 
loofed with slate infTead of thatch, with which it had been 
formerly covered. The windows and doors had been 


ARMINELL. 


57 


originally made of home-grown deal, not thoroughly mature, 
and it had rotted. Saltren renewed the wood-work through- 
out. Moreover, the chimney having been ere’cted of the 
same stone as that of Kite’s cottage, had decayed in the 
same manner. Saltren had it taken down and rebuilt in 
brick, which came expensive, as brick had to be carted 
from fourteen miles off. But, as the captain said, one 
does not mind spending money on a job designed to be 
permanent. Saltren had restocked his garden with fruit 
trees three or four years ago, and these now gave promise 
of bearing. 

The glen in which Chillaeot lay was a “ coombe,” that is, 
it was a short lateral valley running up into hill or moor, 
and opening into the main valley through which flows the 
arterial stream of the district. It was a sequestered spot, 
and as the glen was narrow, it did not get its proper share 
of sun. Some said the glen was called Chillacoombe 
because it was chilly, but the rector derived the name from 
the Celtic word for wood. 

We hear much now-a-days about hereditary instincts and 
proclivities, and a man’s character is thought to be deter- 
mined by those of his ancestors. But locality has much to 
do with the determination of character. Physical causes 
model, develope, or alter physical features; national char- 
acteristics are so shaped, and why not individual characters 
also? 

The climate of England is responsible to a large extent 
for the formation of the representative John Bull. The 
blustering winds, the uncertain weather, go to the hardening 
of the Englishman’s self-reliance, determination, and per 
severance under difficulties. He cannot wait to make hay 
till the sun shines, he must make it whether the sun shines 
or not. Having to battle with wind and rain, and face the 
searching east wind, to confront sleet, and snow, and hail 
from childhood, when, with shining face and satchel he goes 


58 


ARMINELL. 


to school, the boy learns to put down his head and defy the 
weather. Having learned to put down his head and go 
along as a ’boy, he does the same all through life, not 
against weather only, but against everything that opposes, 
with teeth clenched, and fists rolled up in his breeches 
pocket. 

The national characteristic affects the very animals bred 
in our storm-battered isle. A friend of the author had a 
puppy brought out to him on the continent from England. 
That little creature sought out, fought, and rolled over 
every dog in the city where it was. 

“ Dat ish not a doug of dish countree ! ” said a native 
who observed its pugnacity. 

“ Oh, no, it is an English pup.” 

“ Ach so ! I daught as much, it ist one deevil ! ” 

Perhaps the gloom of Chillacot, its sunlessness, was one 
cause of the gravity that affected Saltren’s mind, and made 
him silent, fanatical, shadow-haunted. The germs of the 
temperament were in him from boyhood, but were not fully 
developed till after his marriage and the disappointment 
and disillusioning that ensued. He was a man devoid of 
humour, a joke hurt and offended him ; if it was not sinful, 
it closely fringed on sin, because he could not appreciate it. 
He had a tender, affectionate heart, full of soft places, and, 
but for his disappointment, would have been a kindly man ; 
but he had none to love. The wife had betrayed him, the 
child was not his own. The natural instincts of his heart 
became perverted, he waxed bitter, suspicious, and ready to 
take umbrage at trifles. 

•When Arminell came in front of the cottage, she saw 
Mrs. Saltren leaning over the gate. She was a woman who 
still bore the traces of her former beauty, her nose and lips 
were delicately moulded, and her eyes were still lovely, 
large and soft, somewhat sensuous in their softness. The 
face was not that of a woman of decided character, the 


ARMINELL. 


59 


mouth was weak. Her complexion was clear. Jingles had 
inherited his good looks from her. As Arminell approached, 
she curtsied, then opened the gate, and asked— 

“ Miss Inglett, if I may be so bold, I would so much like 
to have a word with you.” 

“ Certainly,” answered Arminell. 

“Will you honour me, miss, by taking a seaton the 
bench ? ” asked Mrs. Saltren, pointing to a garden bench 
near the door. 

Arminell declined graciously. She could not stay long, 
she had been detained already, and had transgressed the 
luncheon hour. 

“Ah, Miss Inglett,” said the captain’s wife, “I did so 
admire and love your dear mother, the late lady, she was so 
good and kind, and she took — though I say it — a sort of 
fancy to me, and was uncommonly gracious to me.” 

“You were at the park once?” 

“ I was there before I married, but that was just a few 
months before my lord married your mother, the first Lady 
Lamerton. I never was in the house with her, but she often 
came and saw me. That was a bad day for many of us — 
not only for you, miss, but for all of us — when she died. 
If she had lived, I don’t think we could have fallen into 
this trouble.” 

“ What trouble?” Arminell asked. She was touched by 
the reference to her lhother, about whom she knew and was 
told so little. 

“I mean, miss, the mine that is being stopped. Her 
dear late ladyship would never have allowed it.” 

“But it runs under the house.” 

“Oh, miss, nothing of the sort. That is what Mr. 
Macduff says, because he is trying to persuade his lordship 
to close the mine. It is not for me to speak against him, 
but he is much under the management of Mrs. Macduff, 
who is a very fine lady ; and because the miners don’t 


6o 


ARMINELL. 


salute her, she gives Macduff no rest, day or night, till he 
gets his lordship to disperse the men. My lord listens to 
him, and does not see who is speaking through his lips. 
My brother James is a comical-minded man, and he said 
one day that Mr. Macduff was like the automaton chess- 
player that was once exhibited in London Every one 
thought the wax doll played, but there was a young girl hid 
in a compartment under the table, and she ^directed all the 
movements of the chess-player/'’ 

“ I really cannot interfere between my lord and his agent, 
or intercept communications between Mr. Chess-player and 
Mrs. Prompter.” 

“ Oh, no, miss ; I never meant anything of the sort. I 
was only thinking how different it would have been for us 
if my lady — I mean my late lady — were here. She was a 
good friend to us. Oh, miss, I shall never forget when 
I was ill of the typhus, and everyone was afraid to come 
near us, how my good lady came here, carrying a sheet to 
the window, and tapped, and gave it in, because she 
thought we might be short of linen for my bed. I’ve never 
forgot that. I keep that sheet to this day, and I shall 
not part with it ; it shall serve as my winding sheet. The 
dear good lady was so thoughtful for the poor. But times 
are changed. It is not for me to cast blame, or to say that 
my lady as now is, is not good, but there are different kinds 
of goodnesses as there are cabbage roses and Marshal 
Neils.” 

Arminell was interested and touched. 

“You knew my dear mother well ? ” 

“ I am but a humble person, and it is unbecoming of me 
to say it, though I have a brother who is a gentleman, who 
associates with the best in the land, and I am better born 
than you may suppose, seeing that I married a captain of a 
manganese mine. I beg pardon — I was saying that her 
ladyship almost made a friend of me, though I say it who 


ARMINELL. 


6l 


ought not. Still, I had feedings and education above my 
station, and that perhaps led her to consult me when she 
came here to Orleigh and knew nothing of the place or 
of the people, and might have been imposed on, but for 
me. After I recovered of the scarlet fever ” 

“ I thought it was typhus ? ” 

“It began scarlet and ended typhus. Those fevers, 
miss, as my brother James says in his droll way, are like 
tradesmen, they make jobs for each other, and hand on the 
patient.” 

“ How long was that after Mr. Jingles — I mean your son, 
Mr. Giles Saltren, was born ? ” 

“ Oh,” — Mrs. Saltren looked about her rather vaguely — 
“ not over long. Will you condescend to step indoors and 
see my little parlour, where I think, miss, you have never 
been yet, though it is scores and scores of times your dear 
mother came there.” 

“ I will come in,” said Arminell readily. Her heart 
warmed to the woman who had been so valued by her 
mother. 

The house was tidy, dismal indeed, and small, but what 
made it most dismal was the strain after grandeur, the gay 
table-cover, the carpet with large pattern, the wall paper 
black with huge bunches of red and white roses on it, out 
of keeping with the dimensions of the room. 

Arminell looked round and felt a rising sense of the 
absurdity, the affectation, the incongruity, that at any other 
moment would have made her laugh inwardly, though too 
well-bred to give external sign that she ridiculed what she 
saw. 

“ Ah, miss ! ” said Mrs. Saltren, “ you’re looking at that 
beautiful book on the table. My lady gave it me herself, 
and I value it, not because of what it contains, nor for the 
handsome binding, but because of her who gave it to me.” 

Arminell took up the book and opened it. 


62 


ARMINELL. 


“ But — ” she said, — “the date. It is an annual, pub- 
lished three years after my mother’s death.” 

“ Oh, I beg your pardon, miss, I did not say my late 
lady gave it me. I said, my lady. I know how to distin- 
guish between them. If it had been given me by your 
dear mother, who is gone, my late lady, do you suppose it 
would be lying here ? I would not keep it in the room 
where I sit but rarely, but have it in my bed-chamber, where 
I could fold my hands over it when I pray.” 

“ I should like,” said Arminell, “ to see the sheet that 
my poor dear mother gave you, and which you cherish so 
fondly, to wrap about you in the grave.” 

“ With pleasure,” said Mrs. Saltren. “ No — I won’t saj 
with pleasure, for it calls up sad recollections, and yet, miss, 
there is pleasure in thinking of the goodness of that deat 
lady who is gone. Lor ! miss, it did seem dreadful that 
my dear lady when on earth didn’t take precedency ovei 
the daughter of an earl, but now, in heaven, she rank* 
above marchionesses.” 

Then she asked Arminell to take a chair, and went 
slowly upstairs to search for the sheet. While she was 
absent the girl looked round her, and now her lips curled 
with derision at the grotesque strain after refinement and 
luxury which were unattainable as a whole, and only 
reached in inharmonious scraps and disconnected patches. 

This was the home of Jingles ! What a change for him, 
from these mean surroundings, this tasteless affectation, to 
the stateliness and smoothness of life at Orleigh Park ! 
How keenly he must feel the contrast when he returned 
home ! Had her father dealt rightly by the young man, in 
giving him culture beyond his position ? It is said that a 
man has sat in an oven whilst a chop has been done, and 
has eaten the chop, without being himself roasted, but then 
the temperature of the oven was gradually raised and 
gradually lowered. Young Saltren had jumped into the 


ARMINELL. 


63 


oven out of a cellar and parsed every now and then back 
again to the latter. This alteration of temperatures wou.d 
kill him. 

Some time elapsed before Mrs. Saltren returned. She 
descended the stair slowly, sighing, with the sheet over her 
arm. 

“ You need not fear to catch the fever from it, miss,” she 
said, “ it has been washed many times since it was used — 
with my tears.” 

Arminell’s heart was full. She took the sheet and 
looked at it. How good, how considerate her mother had 
been. And what a touch of real feeling this was r.i the 
faithful creature, to cherish the token of her mother’s 
kindness. 

The young are sentimental, and are incapable of distin- 
guishing true feeling from false rhodomontade. 

“ Why ! ” exclaimed Arminell, “ it has a mark in the 
corner S S, — does not that stand for your husband’s initials ?” 

The woman seemed a little taken aback, but soon re- 
covered herself. 

“ It may be so. But it comes about like this. I asked 
Stephen to mark the sheet with a double L. for Louisa, 
Lady Lamerton, and a coronet over, but he was so scrupu- 
lous, he said it might be supposed I had carried it away 
from the park, and that as the sheet was given to us, we’d 
have it marked as our own. My husband is as particular 
about his conscience as one must be with the bones in a 
herring. It was Bond’s marking ink he used,” said Mrs. 
Saltren, eager to give minute circumstances that might 
serve as confirmation of her story, “ and there was a 
stretcher of wood, a sort of hoop, that strained the linen 
whilst it was being written on. If you have any doubt, 
miss, about my story, you’ve only to ask for a bottle of 
Bond’s marking ink and you will see that they have circular 
stretchers — which is a proof that this is the identical sheet 


64 


ARMINELL. 


my lady gave me. Besides, there is a number under the 
letters.” 

“Yes, seven.” 

“ That was my device. It rhymes with heaven, where 
my lady, — I mean my late lady — is now taking precedence 
even of marchionesses.” 

Arminell said nothing. The woman’s mind was like her 
parlour, full of incongruities. 

“Look about you, miss,” continued Mrs. Saltren ; “though 
I say it, who ought not, this is a pretty and comfortable 
house with a certain elegance which I have introduced into 
it. My brother, James Welsh, is a gentleman, and writes a 
great deal. You may understand how troubled my husband 
is at the thought of leaving it.” 

“ But — why leave ? ” 

“ Because, Miss Inglett, he will have no work here. He 
will be driven to go to America, and, unfortunately, he has 
expended his savings in doing up the house and planting the 
garden. I am too delicate to risk the voyage, so I shall be 
separated from my husband. My son Giles has already 
been taken from me.” Then she began to cry. 

A pair of clove-pinks glowed in Arminell’s cheeks. She 
could hardly control her voice. These poor Saltrens were 
badly used; her father was to blame. He was the occasion 
of their trouble. 

“ It must not be,” said Arminell, starting up, “ I will go 
at once and speak to his lordship.” 


CHAPTER VII. 


A VISION. 

Without another word Arminell left the cottage. As she 
did so, she passed Captain Saltren speaking to Captain 
Tubb. The former scarce touched his hat, but the latter 
saluted her with profound respect. 

When she was out of hearing, ' Saltren, whose dark eyes 
had pursued her, said in a low, vibrating tone : 

“ There she goes — one of the Gilded Clique.” 

“ I think you might have shown her more respect, man,” 
said Tubb. “ Honour to whom honour is due, and she is 
honourable.” 

“Why should I show respect to her? If she were a poor 
girl earning her bread, I would salute her with true rever- 
ence, for God hath chosen the poor, rich in faith. But is it 
not written that it is easier for a camel to pass through the 
eye of a needle, than for the rich to enter into heaven ? ” 

“ You’ve queer fancies, Cap’n.” 

“ They are not fancies,” answered Saltren ; “ as it is 
written, so I speak.” Then he hesitated. Something was 
working in his mind, and for a moment he doubted 
whether to speak to one whom he did not regard as of the 
elect. 

But Saltren was not a man who could restrain himself 
under an over-mastering conviction, and he burst forth in a 
torrent of words, and as he spoke his sombre eyes gleamed 
with excitement, and sparks lit up and flashed in them. 


66 


ARM I NELL. 


Soft they usually were, and dreamy, but now, all at once 
they kindled into vehement life. 

“I tell you. Tubb, the Lord hath spoken. The last days 
are at hand. I read my Bible and I read my newspaper, 
and I know that the aristocracy are a scandal and a burden 
to the country. Now the long-suffering of heaven will not 
tarry. It has been revealed to me that they are doomed to 
destruction.” 

“ Revealed to you ! ” 

“Yes, to me, an unworthy creature, as none know better 
than myself, full of errois and faults and blindness — and 
yet — to me. I was wn stling in spirit near the water’s edge, 
thinking of these things, when, suddenly, I heard a voice 
from heaven calling me.” 

“ How — by name ? Did it call you Cap’n ? ” 

Saltren hesitated. “I can’t mind just now whether it 
said, Saltren, Saltren ! or whether it said Mister, or whether 
Cap’n, or Stephen. I daresay I shall remember by-and-by 
when I come to turn it over in my mind. But all has come 
on me so freshly, so suddenly, that I am still dazed with 
the revelations.” 

“Go on,” said Tubb, shaking his head dubiously. 

“ And when I looked up, I saw a book come flying down 
to me out of heaven, and I held up my hands to receive it, 
but it went by me into the water hard by where I was.” 

“ Somebody chucked it at you,” exclaimed the practical 
Tubb. 

“ I tell ycu, it came down out of heaven,” said Saltren, 
impatiently. “ You have no faith. I saw the book, and 
before I could lay hold of it, it went under the raft — I 
mean, it went down, down in the water, and I beheld it no 
more.” 

“ What sort of a book was it ? ” 

“ I saw it but for a moment, as it floated with the back 
upwards, before it disappeared. There was a head on it 


ARMINELL. 67 

and a title. I could not make out whose head, but 1 read 
the title, and the title was clear.” 

“ What was it ? ” 

“ ‘ The Gilded Clique.’ ” 

“ Clique ! what was that ? ” 

(i A society, a party, and I know what was meant.” 

“ Some one must have chucked the book,” again reasoned 
the prosaic Tubb. 

“ It was not chucked, it fell. I was wrong to tell you of 
my vision. The revelation is not for such as you. I will 
say no more.” 

“ And pray, what do you make out of this queer tale ? ” 
asked the captain of the lime quarry, with ill-disguised in- 
credulity. 

“Is it not plain as the day ? I have had revealed to me 
that the doom of the British aristocracy is pronounced, the 
House of Lords, the privileged class — in a word, the whole 
Gilded Clique?” 

Tubb shook his head. 

“You’ll never satisfy me it weren’t chucked,” he said. 
“ But, to change the subject, Saltren. You have read and 
studied more than I have. Can you tell me what sort of a 
plant Quinquagesima is, and whether it is grown from seed, 
or cuttings, or layers ? ” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


ABREAST. 

As Arminell left Chillacot she did not observe the scant 
courtesy shown her by Captain Saltren. She was brimming 
with sympathy for him in his trouble, with tender feeling 
for the wife who had so loved her mother, and for the son 
who was out of his proper element. It did not occur to 
her that possibly she might be regarded by Saltren with 
disfavour. She had not gone many paces from the house 
before she came on a middle-aged couple, walking in the 
sun, abreast, arm in arm, the man smoking a pipe, which 
he removed and concealed in the pocket of his old velvet 
shooting coat, when he saw Arminell, and then he respect- 
fully removed his hat. The two had been at church. 
Arminell knew them by sight, but she had not spoken at 
any time to either. The man, she had heard, had once 
been a gamekeeper on the property, but had been dismissed, 
the reason forgotten, probably dishonesty. The woman 
was handsome, with bright complexion, and very clear, 
crystalline eyes, a boldly cut nose, and well curved lips. 
The cast of her features was strong, yet the expression of 
the face was timid, patient and pleading. 

She had fair, very fair hair, hair that would imperceptibly 
become white, so that on a certain day, those who knew her 
would exclaim, “Why, Joan ! who would have thought it? 
Your hair is white.” But some years must pass before the 
bleaching of Joan’s head was accomplished. She was only 
lorty, and was bale and strongly built. 


ARMINELL. 


69 

She unlinked her arm from that of her companion and 
came curtseying to Arminell, who saw that she wore a 
hideous crude green kerchief, and in her bonnet, magenta 
bows. 

“ Do you want me ? ” she asked coldly. The unaesthetic 
colours offended her. 

“ Please, my lady ! ” 

“ 1 am not ‘ my lady.’ ” 

Joan was abashed, and retreated a step. 

“ I am Miss Inglett. What do you want ? ” 

“ I was going to make so bold, my la — I mean, miss .” 

Joan became crimson with shame at so nearly transgressing 
again. “ This is Samuel Ceely.” 

Arminell nodded. She was impatient, and wanted to be 
at home. She looked at the man whose pale eyes quivered. 

“ Is he your husband ?” asked Arminell. 

“ No, miss, not exactly. Us have been keeping com- 
pany twenty years — no more. How many years is it since 
us first took up wi’ each other, Samuel ? ” 

“ Nigh on twenty-two. Twenty-two.” 

“ Go along, Samuel, not so much as that. Well, miss, 
us knowed each other when Samuel was a desperate wicked 
( i.e . lively) chap. Then. Samuel was keeper at the park. 
There was some misunderstanding. The head-keeper was 
to blame and laid it on Samuel. He’s told me so scores o’ 
times. Then came his first accident. When was that, 
Samuel ? ” 

“ When I shooted my hand away ? Nineteen years come 
next Michaelmas.” 

“ Were you keeper, then ? ” asked Arminell. 

“ No, miss, not exactly.” 

“ Then, how came you with the gun ? ” 

“ By accident, quite by accident.” 

Joan hastily interfered. It would not do to enquire too 
closely what he was doing on that occasion. 


7o 


ARMINELL. 


“ When was your second accident, Samuel ? ” 

“ Fifteen years agone.” 

“ And what was that ? ” asked Joan. 

“ I failed off a waggon.” 

Arminell interrupted. This was the scene of old Gobbo 
and young Gobbo re-enacted. It must be brought to an 
end. “ Tell thou the tale,” she said with an accent of im- 
patience in her intonation, addressing Joan. “What is 
your name ? ” 

“Joan Melhuish, miss. Us have been sweethearts a 
great many years ; and, miss, the poor old man can’t do a 
sight of work, because of his leg, and because of his hand. 
But, lor-a-mussy, miss, his sweepings is beautiful. You 
could eat your dinner, miss, off a stable floor, where Samuel 
has swept. Or the dog-kennels, miss, — if Samuel were but 
with the dogs, he’d be as if in Paradise. He do love dogs 
dearly, do Samuel. He’s that conscientious, miss, that if 
he was sound asleep, and minded in his dream there was a 
bit o’ straw lying where he ought to ha’ swept clean, or that 
the dogs as needed it, hadn’t had brimstone put in their 
water, he’d get up out o’ the warmest bed — not, poor chap, 
that he’s got a good one to lie on — to give the dog his 
brimstone, or pick up thickey (that) straw.” 

She was so earnest, so sincere, that her story appealed to 
Arminell’s feelings. Was the dust that the witch, Patience, 
had cast on her head, taking effect and opening her eyes to 
the sorrows and trials of the underground folk ? 

“ Please, miss ! It ain’t only sweeping he does beauti- 
fully. If a dog has fleas, he’ll wash him and comb him — 
and, miss, he can skin a hare or a rabbit beautiful — beauti- 
ful ! I don’t mean to deny that Samuel takes time about 
it,” she assumed an apologetic tone, “ but then, miss, which 
be best, to be slow and do a thing thorough, or be quick and 
half do it? Now, miss, what I was going to make so bold 
as to say was, Samuel do be a-complaining of the rheumatics. 


ARMINELL. 


They’ve a-took’n bad across the loins, and it be bad for him 
out in all weathers weeding turnips, and doing them odd 
and dirty jobs men won’t do now, nor wimen n’other, what 
wi’ the advance of education, and the franchise, and T did 
think it would be wonderful good and kind o’ you, miss, if 
you’d put in a word for Samuel, just to have the sweeping o’ 
the back yard, or the pulling of rabbits, or the cleaning up 
of dishes ; he’d make a rare kitchen-maid, and could scour 
the dogs as well, and keep ’em from scratching over much. 
Lord, miss ! what the old man do want is nourishing food 
and dryth (dry air) over and about him.” 

“ I’ll speak to the housekeeper — no, I will speak to her 
ladyship about the matter. I have no doubt something can 
be done for Samuel.” 

Joan curtsied, and her honest face shone with satisfaction. 

“ Lord A’mighty bless you, miss ! I have been that con- 
cerned about the old man — he is but fifty, but looks older, 
because of his two accidents. H’s shy o’ asking lor hisself, 
because hfe was dismissed by the late lord ; the upper keeper 
laid things on him he’d no right to. He’s a man, miss, who 
don’t set no store on his self, because he has lost a thumb 
and two fingers, and got a dislocated thigh. But there’s 
more in Samuel than folks fancy ; I ought to know best, us 
have kept company twenty years.” 

“ Are you ever going to get married ? ” 

Joan shook her head. 

“ But how is it,” asked Arminell, “that you have not been 
married yet, after courting so long ? ” 

“ First the bursted gun spoiled the chance — but Lord, 
miss, though he’s lost half his hand, he is as clever with 
what remains as most men with two.” 

“ He was unable to work for his living, I suppose ? ” 

“ And next he were throwed down off a waggon, and he’s 
been lame ever since. But, Lord, miss ! he do get along 
with the bad leg, beautiful, quite beautiful.” 


72 


ARMINELL. 


“You are not nearer your marriage than you were 
twenty years ago,” said Arminell, pitifully. 

“ I have been that troubled for Samuel,” said Joan, not 
replying, but continuing her own train of thought ; “ I’ve 
feared he’d be took off to the union, and then the old man 
would ha’ died, not having me to walk out with of a Sunday 
and bring him a little ’baccy. And I — -I’d ha’ nort in the 
world to live for, or to hoard my wages for, wi’out my old 
Samuel.” 

The woman paused, turned round and looked at the 
feeble disabled wreck of a man, who put his crippled hand 
to his forelock and saluted. 

“ How came he to fall off the waggon ? ” asked Arminell. 

“ Well, miss, it came of my being on the waggon,” ex- 
plained Ceely, “ I couldn’t have failed off otherwise.” 

“ Were you asleep ? Was the waggon in motion ? ” 

Joan hastily interfered, it would not do for too close an 
enquiry to be made into how it came that Samuel was in- 
capable of keeping himself firm on the waggon any more 
than it would do to go too narrowly into the occasion of his 
shooting off his hand. 

“What was it, miss, you was a-saying? Nearer our 
marriage ? That is as the Lord wills. But — miss — us two 
have set our heads on one thing. I don’t mind telling you, 
as you’re so kind as to promise you’d get Samuel a situation 
as kitchen-maid.” 

“ I did not promise that !” 

“ Well, miss, you said you’d speak about it, and 1 know 
well enough that what you speak about will be done.” 

“ What is it you have set your heart on? Can I help 
you to that ? ” 

“You, miss! O no, only the Lord. You see, miss, I 
don’t earn much, and Samuel next to nothing at all, so our 
ever having a heme o our own do seem a long way off. 
But there’s the north side of the church, where Samuel’s 


ARMINELL. 


73 


two fingers and thumb be laid, us can go to them. And us 
have bespoke to the sexton the place whereabout the fingers 
and thumb lie. I ha’ planted rosemary there, and know 
where it be, and no one else can be laid there, as his fingers 
and thumb be resting there. And when Samuel dies, or I 
die, whichever goes first is to lie beside the rosemary bush 
over his fingers and thumb, and when the t’other follows, 
Samuel or. I will be laid beside the other, with only the 
fingers and thumb and rosemary bush between us, — ’cos 
us ain’t exactly married — and ’twouldn’t be respectable 
wi’out. ’Twill be no great expense,” she added, apologeti- 
cally. 

When Joan Melhuish had told her all the story, Arminell 
no longer saw the crude green kerchief and the magenta 
bows. She saw only the face of the poor woman, the 
crystal-clear eyes in which light came, and then moisture, 
and the trembling lips that told more by their tremor than 
by the words that passed over them, of the deep stirring in 
the humble, patient heart. 

How often it is with us that, looking at others, who be- 
long to an inferior, or only a distinct class, we observe 
nothing but verdigris green kerchiefs and magenta bows, 
something out of taste, jarring with our refinement, ridicu- 
lous from our point of view. Then we talk of the whole 
class as supremely barbarous, grotesque and separate from 
us by leagues of intervening culture, a class that puts verdi- 
gris kerchiefs on and magenta bows, as our forefathers before 
Christ painted their bodies with woad. And we argue — 
these people have no human instincts, no tender emotions, 
no delicate feelings — how can they have, wearing as they do 
green ties and magenta bows ? Have the creatures eyes ? 
Surely not when they wear such unaesthetic colours. Hands, 
organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Not with 
emerald-green kerchiefs. If we prick them they do not 
bleed. If we tickle they cannot laugh. If we poison them, 


74 


ARM I NELL. 


they will not die. If we wrong them — bah ! They wear 
magenta bows and are ridiculous. 

It needs, may be, a sod taken from their soil, a little dust 
from their hearth shaken over our heads to open our eyes to 
see that they have like passions andweaknesses with ourselves. 

Arminell, without speaking, turned to Samuel, and 
looked at him. 

What was there in this poor creature to deserve such 
faithful love? He was a ruin, and not the ruin of a noble 
edifice, but of a commonplace man. There was no beauty 
in him, no indication of talent in his face, n power in the 
moulding of his brow. He looked absurd in his short, 
shabby, patched, velveteen coat, his breeches and gaiters 
on distorted limbs. His attitudes with the ill-set thigh 
were ungainly. And yet — this handsome woman had given 
up her life to him. 

“ He don’t seem much to you, perhaps, miss,” said 
Joan, who eagerly scanned Arminell’s face, and with the 
instinctive jealousy of love discovered her thoughts. “ But, 
miss, what saith the Scripture ? Look not on his coun- 
tenance or on the height of his stature. You should ha’ 
seen Samuel before his accidents. Then he was of a 
ruddy countenance, and goodly to look on. I always see 
.him as he was.” 

She still searcned Arminell’s face for token of admiration. 

“ Lord, miss ! tastes differ. Some like apples and others 
like onions. For my part, I do like a hand wi’ two fingers 
on it, it is uncommon, it is properly out o’ the way as 
hands are. And then, miss, Samuel do seem to me to ha’ 
laid hold of eternity wi’ two fingers and a thumb, having 
sent them on before him, and that is more than can be 
said of most of us poor sinners here below.” 

She still studied the girl’s countenance, and Arminell 
controlled its expression. 

“Then,” Joan continued, “as for his walk, it is lovely. 


ARMINELL. 


75 


It is evei dancing as he goes along the road. It makes 
one feel young — a girl — to have his arm, there be such a 
lightness and swing in his walk.” 

“ But — ” Arminell began, then hesitated, and then went 
on with a rush, “ are you not discontented, impatient, 
miserable ? ’ 

“ Why so, mis$ ? ” 

“ Because you have loved him so long and see no 
chance of getting him.” 

“No, miss. If I get him here, I get him to give me 
only half a hand ; if I get him in the other world, I get his 
whole hand, thumb and two first fingers as weli. I be 
content either way.” 


CHAPTER IX. 


^ TANDEM. 

On the edge o r a moor, at the extreme limits to which man 
had driven back savage nature, where were the last 
boundary walls of stone piled up without compacting 
mortar, was a farm-house called Court. It stood at the 
point where granite broke out from under the schistose 
beds, and where it had tilted these beds up into a per- 
pendicular position. A vast period of* time had passed 
since the molten granite thus broke forth, and the ragged 
edges of upturned rock had been weathered down to mere 
stumps, but on these stumps sat the homestead and farm- 
house of Court, with a growth of noble sycamores about it. 

A stream brawling down from the moor swept half round 
this mass of old worn-down rock, a couple of granite slabs 
had been cast across it, meeting in the middle on a rude 
pier, and this served as a foot-bridge, but carts and waggons 
traversed the water, and scrambled up a steep ascent cut 
out of the rock by wheels and winter runs. 

If Court had been a corn-growing farm, this would have 
been inconvenient, but this Court was not. It was a sheep 
and cattle rearing farm, and on it was tilled nothing but a 
little rye and some turnips. 

In an elastic air fresh from the ocean, at a height of a 
thousand feet above the sea, the lungs find delight in each 
inhalation, and the pulses leap with perennial youth. 


ARMINELL. 77 

Pecuniary embarrassments cease to oppress, and the 
political outlook appears less threatening. 

At the bottom of yonder valley three hundred feet above 
the sea-level, where a steamy, dreamy atmosphere hangs, 
we see that England is going to the dogs ; the end of 
English commerce, agriculture, the aristocracy, the church, 
the crown, the constitution is at hand — in a word, the 
Saturday Review expresses exactly our temper of mind. A 
little way up the hiil, we think the recuperative power of 
the British nation is so great, the national vigour is so 
enormous, that it will shake itself free of its troubles in 
time — in time, and with patience — in a word, we begin to 
see through the spectacles of the Spectator. But wh* n we 
have our foot on the heather, and scent the incense of the 
gorse, and hear the stonechat and the pewit, and see the 
flicker of the silver cotton grass about us, why then — we 
feel we are in the best of worlds, and in the best little nook 
of the whole world, and that all mankind is pushing its 
way, like us, upward with a scramble over obstacles ; it 
will, like us, in the end breathe the same sparkling air, and 
enjoy the same extensive outlook, and be like us without 
care. 

From Court what a wonderful prospect was commanded. 
'The Angel in the Apocalypse stood with one foot on the 
land, and the other in the sea ; so Court stood half in the 
r/ch cultivated garden of the Western Paradise, and half in 
the utter desolation of treeless moor. To south and west 
lay woodlands and pasture, parks and villages, tufts of 
Scotch fir, cedars, oak and elm and beech, with rooks 
cawing and doves cooing, and the woodpecker hooting 
among them ; to the east and north lay the haunt of the 
blackcock and hawk and wimbrel, and tracts of heather 
flushed with flower, and gorse ablaze with sun, and aro- 
matic as incense. 

Far away in the north-west, when the sun went down, he 


ARMINELL. 


7 * 

set in a quiver of gold-leaf, he doubled his size, and expired 
like the phoenix in flame. That was when he touched the 
ocean, and in touching revealed it. 

What a mystery there is in distance ? How the soul is 
drawn forth, step by step, over each rolling hill, down each 
half-disclosed valley. How it wonders at every sparkle 
where a far-off window reflects the sun, and admires where 
the mists gather in wooded clefts, and asks, what is that ? 
when the sun discloses white specks far away on slopes of 
turquoise ; as the Israelites asked when they saw the 
Manna. How a curling pillar of smoke stirs up interest, 
rising high and dispersing slowly. We watch and are filled 
with conjecture. 

As the afternoon sun shines sideways on the moor-cheek, 
it discloses what it did not reveal at other times, the 
faintest trace of furrows where are no fields now, where no 
plough has run since the memory of man. Was corn once 
grown there ? At that bleak altitude ? Did the climate 
permit of its ripening at one time? No one can answer 
these questions, but how else account for these furrows 
occasionally, only under certain aspects discernible ? And 
to Court there was a corn-chamber, a sort of tower standing 
on a solid basement of stone six feet above the ground, a 
square construction all of granite blocks, floored within 
with granite, and with a conical slated roof, and a flight of 
stone steps leading up to it. A tower — a fortress built 
against rats, who will gnaw through oak and even lead, but 
must break their teeth against granite. 

The corn-chamber was overhung by a sycamore, and at 

its side a rown, or “ witch-bean ” as it is locally called a 

mountain ash — had taken root, flourished and ripened its 
crimson berries. 

On the lowest step but one of the flight leading to the 
corn-chamber sat Thomasine Kite, the daughter of the 
white-witch, Patience. The evening was still and balmy in 


ARMINELL. 


79 


the valleys ; here on the moor-edge airs ever stirred and 
were crisp. The bells were ringing for evening service far 
away in a fcelfry that stood on a hill against the western sky, 
and their music came in wafts mingled with the hum of 
the wind among the heather, and the twitter among the 
sycamores. 

Aloft, on the highest twig of the tallest tree sat a crow 
calling itself in Greek, Korax ! and so pleased with the 
sound of its name in Greek that it repeated its name again 
and again, and grew giddy with vanity, and nearly over- 
balanced itself, and had to spread wings and recover its 
poise. 

Thomasine was in a bad humour. All the household of 
Court were away, master and mistress, men and maids, and 
she was left alone like that crow on the tree-tops. 

“ Tamsin ! ” muttered the girl, “ what a foolish name I 
have got. It’s like damson, of which they make cheese. 
If they’d call me by my proper name of Thomasine, it would 
be all right, but Tamsin I hate.” 

“ Korax ! ” croaked the crow. “ Why was I not born in 
Greece to be called Korax ? Crow is vulgar.” 

“ I’m tired of my place,” grumbled the girl ; “ Icjre I am 
a servant maid at Court, out of the world and hard worked. 
Nothing going on, nothing to see, no amusements nothing 
to read.” 

Why was Thomasine restless and impatient for a change? 
She did not herself know. She was dissatisfied with what ? 
She did not herself properly know. She had vigorous 
health ; she had work, but not more than what with her 
fresh youth and hearty body she could easily execute. She 
had sufficient to eat. The farmer and his wife were not 
exacting, nor rough and bad tempered. The workmen and 
women on the farm were as workmen and women are, with 
good and bad points about them. Elsewhere she would 
meet with much the same sort of associates. She knew 


8o 


ARMINELL. 


that. Her wage was not high, but it was as much as she 
was likely to get in a farm-house, and a small wage there 
with freedom was better than a big wage in a ‘gentleman’s 
family with restraint. She knew that. Yet she was not 
content. She wanted something, and she did not know 
what. She would give her mistress notice and go elsewhere. 
Whither? She did not know. At any rate it would be 
elsewhere, a change ; and she craved for a change, for she 
had been a twelvemonth in one place. Would she like her 
new situation ? She did not know. Would she, when in a 
town, look back on the healthy life at Court ? Possibly ; 
she did not know. But she could not stay, because as the 
passion for roving is in the gipsy blood, so was the fever of 
unrest in hers. She was tired of life as it presented itself 
to her, uniform, commonplace, unsensational. 

There was a period in European history when all was 
change, when every people plucked itself out of its ancestral 
ground and went a wandering ; when the whole of the con- 
tinent was trampled over by races galloping west, like cattle 
and wild beasts disturbed by a prairie fire. What was the 
cause ? We hardly know, but we know that there was not 
a people, a race, a class which, was not thus inspired with 
the passion for change of domicile. The Germans entitle 
that period the time of the great Folk-wandering. We are 
in the midst of such another Folk-wandering, but it is not 
now the migration of races and nations, but of classes and 
individuals ; the passion for change drives the men and 
women out of the country to towns, and the young out of 
their situations. It is in the air, it is in their blood. 

The evening sun touched the western sea, and flared 
up in a spout of fire. Then Thomasine rose to her feet. 
Her red hair had fallen, and she bent her arms behind her, 
to do it up. Gorgeous that hair was in the evening sun, it 
seemed itself to be on fire, to be incandescent in every hair, 
and her attitude as she stood on the step was grand, her 


ARM I NELL/ 


81 


vigorous, graceful form, her splendid proportions were shown 
in perfection, with bosom expanded, and her hands behind 
her head collecting and tying and twisting the fire that 
rained off it. The evening sun was full on her, and filled 
her eyes that she could see nothing ; but her handsome 
face was shown illuminated as a lamp against the cold grey 
Walls of the corn-chamber. Her shadow was cast up the 
steps and against the door, a shadow that had no blackness 
in it, but the purple of the plum. 

“ Tamsin ! my word, you are on fire ! ” 

She started, let go her hair, and it fell about her, envelop- 
ing her shoulders and arms in flame. Then she put one 
hand above her eyes, and looked to see who addressed her. 

“ You here, Archelaus ! What has brought you to this 
lost corner of the world, this time o’ day? ” 

“You, of course, Tamsin, what else?” 

“ I wish you’d choose a better time than when I’m doing 
up my hair.” 

“ I could not wish a better time than when you are in a 
blaze of glory.” 

The young man who spoke was Archelaus Tubb, son of 
the captain of the slate quarry. He was a simple, good- 
humoured, not clever young man. ■ Strongly built, with 
sparkling eyes and a merry laugh, he was just such a fellow 
as would have made his way in the world, had he been en- 
dowed with wits. He was not absolutely stupid, but he was 
muddle-headed. He succeeded in nothing that he under- 
took. He had been apprenticed to a carpenter, and at the 
expiration of three years was unable even to make a gate. 

He tried his hand at gardening, and dug graves for 
potatoes, and put in bulbs upside down. He had faculties, 
but was incapable of applying them, or was too careless to 
call them together and concentrate them on his work. 
There seemed small prospect of his earning wage above that 
of a day-labourer. > 


82 


ARMINELL. 


He had fair hair, an honest face, always on the alert for a 
laugh. As he had been unqualified for any trade, his father 
had given him work in the quarry, but therein he earned but 
a labourer’s wage, fourteen shillings a week. 

Thomasine reseated herself on the lowest step but one, 
and put her feet on the lowest, and crossed her hands on 
her lap. 

“Arkie,” said she; “I am going away from Court, the 
life here is too dull for me. I want to see the world.” 

“ Where are you going, Tamsin ? ” 

“Not to bury myselr in a place where nothing is doing, 
again.” 

“ Nothing doing ! There is plenty of work on a farm.” 

“ Work ! ” scorned Thomasine. “ Who wants work now ? 
not I — I want to go where there are murders and burglaries 
and divorces — into a place where there is life.” 

“ Queer sort of life that,” said Archelaus, casting himself 
down on the lowest step. 

“ I want to be where those things are done and talked 
about,” said Thomasine; “ what do I care about how the corn 
looks, and whether the sheep have the foot-rot, and what 
per stone is the price of bullocks? Now — you need not sit 
on my feet.” 

“ I will choose a higher step,” said the lad ; then he stepped 
past her, and seated himself on that above her. 

“ Upon my word, Tamsin,” he said, “you haw wonderful 
hair. It, is like mother’s copper kettle new s-'oured, and 
spun into spiders’ threads. Some red hair,” continued he, 
“ is coarse as wire, but this,” he put his fingers tnrough the 
splendid waves, “ but this ” 

“ Is not for you to 'meddle with,” said Thomasine. 
“ Shall I make my fortune with it in the world ? ” 

She stood up, and stepped past him, and seated herself 
on the step immediately above that he occupied. 

“ In the world !” repeated Archelaus. “What world-- 


ARMINELL. 83 

that where murders and burglaries and divorces are the 
great subject of talk?” 

“Aye — in the world where something is doing, where 
there is life, not in th? world of mangold- wurzel.” 

“ I do not know, Tamsin,” said the lad dispiritedly. “ 1 
hope not.” 

“Why not? I am not happy here. I want to be where 
something is stirring. “ Why,” said Thomasine with a flash 
of anger in her cheek and eye and the tone of her voice — 
“ Why am I to be a poor farm girl, and Miss Arminell 
Inglett to have all she wishes? She to be wealthy, and I to 
have nothing? She to be happy, and I wretched? I sup- 
pose I am good-looking, eh, Arkie ? ” 

“ Of course you are,” said he ; “ but, Tamsin, I cannot 
talk to you as you are behind me.” . 

“ I do not care to see your face,” said the girl, “the back 
of your collar and coat are enough for me. Is that your 
Sunday wide-awake ? ” 

“Yes — -what have you against it?” 

“Only that there is a hole in it, there” — she thrust her 
finger through the gap in the crown, and touched his 
scalp. 

“ I know there is, Tamsin ; a coal bounced on to it from 
the fire.” 

“ Without bringing light to your brain.” 

“ l shall change my place,” said Archelaus ; he stood up, 
stepped past the girl, and seated himself above her. 

“Now,” said he, “I can look down on, and seek for 
blemishes in your head.” * 

“ You will find none there — eh ! Arkie ? Shall I make 
my fortune with my hair? Coin- it into gold and wear 
purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day? 
That is what I want and will have, and I don’t care how I 
get it ; so long as I get it. My head and hair are not for 
you.” 


8 4 


ARMINELL. 


Then she stood up, strode past Archelaus, and planted 
herself on the step higher than that he occupied. 

“ This is a queer keeping company, tandem fashion, and 
changing the leader,” laughed Archelaus. 

“We are not keeping company,” answered Thomasine. 
“Tandem is best as we are, single best of all.” 

“ I don’t see why we should not keep company,” said 
the lad. 

“I do,” answered Thomasine sharply; “have I not made 
it plain to you that I didn’t want a life of drudgery, and 
that I choose to have a life in which I may amuse myself? ” 

“ Let us try to sit on the same step,” said Archelaus, “ and 
then we can discuss the matter together, better than as we 
are, with one turning the back on the other.” 

“ There is not room, Arkie.” 

“ I’ll try it all events,” said he, as he got up and seated 
himself beside her. “Now we are together, and can keep 
steady if one puts an arm round the other.” 

“I will not be held by you,” said she, and mounted to 
the step above ; then she burst out laughing, and pointed. 
“Do y’ look there,” she said, “there is a keeping of com- 
pany would suit you.” 

She indicated a pair that approached the farm. The 
man was lame, with a bad hip, and his right hand was 
furnished with two fingers only — it was Samuel Ceely. 
His maimed hand was thiust between the buttons of his 
waistcoat, and on his right arm rested the coarse red hand 
of Joan Melhuish. 

“ Do v’ look there ! ” exclaimed Thomasine, “ are they 
not laughable? They have been courting these twenty 
years, and no nigher marriage now than when they began ; 
it might be the same with us, were I fool enough to listen 
and wait for what you offer.” 

“ It is no laughing matter,” said the lad, “ it is sad.” 

“ It is sad that she should be such a fool ! Will his 


ARMINELL. 


85 


fingers grow again, and his hip right itself? She should 
have looked about for another lover twenty years ago, now 
it is too late, and I take warning from her. You, Arkie, 
are like Samuel Ceely, not in body but in wits, crippled 
and limping there.” 

“ Tamsin ! ” exclaimed Arkie, “ you shall not speak like 
that to me.” He stood up and stepped to where she was, 
and seated himself again beside her. That was on the 
highest step, and they were now both with their backs to 
the granary door. He tried to take her hand. 

“No, Arkie,” she said, “'I speak seriously, I will not be 
your sweetheart. I like you well enough. You are a good- 
tempered, nice fellow, very good natured, and always cheer- 
ful, but I won’t have you. I can’t live on fourteen shillings 
a week, and I won’t live in the country where there is no- 
thing going on, but cows calving and turnips growing. 
There is no wickedness in either, and wickedness makes 
life various and enjoyable. I can read and write and 
cypher, and am tired of work accordingly. I want to 
enjoy myself. There is mistress ! ” she exclaimed, stood 
up, stepped aside, missed her footing, and fell to the bottom 
of the steps. 

“ Oh, Tamsin, if only you had let me hold you ! ” cried 
Archelaus, and ran down to raise her. <? Then you would 
not have fallen.” She had sprained her foot and could 
only limp. 


CHAPTER X. 


“ SABINA GREEN.” 

In the four-hundred-and-thirty-first number of the Spectato t 
is a letter from Sabina Green, on the disordered appetite 
she had acquired by eating improper and innutritious food 
at school. “ I had not been there above a Month, when 
being in the Kitchen, I saw some Oatmeal on the Dresser ; 
I put two or three Corns in my Mouth, liked it, stole a 
Handful, went into my Chamber, chewed it, and for two 
Months after never failed taking Toll of every Pennyworth 
of Oatmeal that came into the House. But one Day play- 
ing with a Tobacco-pipe between my Teeth, it happened to 
break in my Mouth, and the spitting out the Pieces left 
such a delicious Roughness on my Tongue, that I could 
not be satisfied till I had champed up the remaining Part 
of the Pipe. I forsook the Oatmeal, and stuck to the 
Pipes three Months, in uhich time I had disposed of thirty- 
seven foul Pipes, all to the Boles. I left off eating of Pipes 
and fell to licking of Chalk. Two Months after this, I 
lived upon Thunderbolts, a certain long, round, bluish 
Stone, which I found among the Gravel in our Garden.” 

Arminell’s mental appetite was as much disordered as 
the physical appetite of Sabina Green. Whether Gaboriau’s 
novels bore any analogy to the foul tobacco-pipes, we do 
pretend to say, their record of vice certainly left an agree- 
able roughness on her mental palate, but now without any 
intermediate licking of chalk, she has clenched her teeth 


ARMINELL 


37 


upon a thunderbolt — a question hard, insoluble, beyond 
her powers of mastication. Besides, she was wholly un- 
aware that the thunderbolt had been laid in her path ex- 
pressly that she might exercise her teeth upon it. 

A hundred and fifty years ago, Sabina Green picked 
corns, licked chalk and munched tobacco pipes, and the 
same thing goes on nowadays. There are tens of thousands 
of Sabina Greens with their mouths full, and with no ap- 
petite but for tobacco-pipes or thunderbolts. We have 
advanced — our pipes are now meerschaum — foam ot the 
sea. 

We have known young ladies who would touch nothing 
but meringues, and thereby seriously impair their constitu- 
tions and complexions. We have known others who could 
touch nothing but literary meringues, novels, and whose 
digestion revolted at solid food, but who crunched flum- 
mery romance at all times of day and night, till the flum- 
mery invaded their brains, filled their mouths, frothed in 
their hearts ; and then tired of sweets they look out for 
what is pungent or foul — like the old tobacco-pipes. 

An unwholesome trick into which German women fall is 
that of “ naschen,” of nibbling comfits and cakes all day 
long. They carry cornets of bonbons in their pockets, and 
have recourse to them every minute. They suffer much 
from disordered digestion, and fall into the green sickness, 
because they lack iron in the blood. How can they have 
iron in the blood when they eat only sugar ? Our English 
girls have a similar infirmity, they nibble at novels, pick at 
the unsubstantial, innutritious stuff that constitutes fiction 
all day long. Do they lack iron in their moral fibre? 
Are their souls bloodless and faint with the green sickness ? 
How can it be other on a diet of flummery. 

The stomach of the nibbler never hungers, only craves ; 
the appetite is supplanted by nausea. The symptoms of 
disorder are permanent; languor of interest, debility of 


83 


ARMINELL. 


principle, loss of energy in purpose, a disordered vision, and 
creeping moral paralysis. 

If Arminell . had reached the condition of one of these 
novel-nibblers, what she had heard would have produced no 
effect upon her heart or brain because neither heart nor 
brain would have been left in her. But she had not been 
a habitual novel-reader, she had read whatever came to 
hand, indiscriminately ; and the flummery of mere fiction 
would never have satisfied her, because she possessed, what 
the novel-nibblers do not possess, intelligence. No con- 
trol had been exercised over her reading, consequently she 
had read things that were unsuitable. She had a strong 
character, without having found outlets for her energy. A 
wise governess would have tested her, and then led her to 
pursuits which would have exerted her ambition and occu- 
pied her interest ; but her teachers had been either wedded 
to routine or intellectually her inferiors. Conseque ntly she 
had no special interests, but that inner eagerness and fire 
which would impel her to take up and follow with enthu- 
siasm any object which excited her interest. Her friends 
said of Arminell with unanimity that she was a disagreeable 
girl, but none said she was an empty-headed one. 

On reaching the house, Arminell found that lunch was 
over, and that her father had gone out. He had sauntered 
forth, as the day was fine, to look at his cedars and pines 
in the plantations, and with his pocket-knife remove the 
lateral shoots. Lady Lamerton was taking a nap previous 
to the resumption of her self-imposed duties at Sunday- 
school. 

. Arminell was indisposed to go to school and afternoon 
service in the church. After a solitary lunch she went up- 
stairs to the part of the house where was Giles’ school-room. 
She had not seen her brother that day, and as the little 
• 11( w was unwell, she thought it incumbent on her to visit 
him. 


ARMINELL. 


89 


She found the tutor, Giles Inglett (mlgo, Jingles) Saltren, 
in the room with the boy. Little Giles had a Noah’s Ark 
on the table, and was trying to make the animals stand on 
their infirm legs, in procession, headed by the dove which 
was as large as the dog, and half the size of the elephant. 

Mr. Saltren sat by the window looking forth discon- 
solately. The child had a heavy cold, accompanied by 
some fever. 

“ If you wish to leave the school-room, Mr. Saltren,” said 
Arminell, “ I am prepared to occupy your place with the 
captive.” 

“ I thank you, Miss Inglett,” answered the tutor. “ But 
I have strict orders to go through the devotional exercises 
with Giles this afternoon, the same as this morning.” 

“ I will take them for you.” 

“ You are most kind in offering, but having been set my 
tale of bricks to make without straw, I am not justified in 
sending another into the clayfield, in my room.” 

“,I see — this is a house of bondage to you, Mr. Saltren. 
You hinted this morning that you meditated an in exitu 
Israel de Egypto .” 

The young man coloured. 

“ You tread too sharply on the heels of the pied de la 
lettre, Miss Inglett.” 

“ But you feel this, though you shrink from the expres- 
sion of your thoughts. You told me yourself this forenoon 
that you were not happy. If you leave us, whither do you 
propose going ? ” 

“ A journey in the wilderness for forty years.” 

“ With what Land of Promise in view ? ” 

“ I have set none before me.” 

“None ? I cannot credit that. Every man has his Land 
of Promise towards which he turns his face. Why leave 
the leeks and onions of Goshen, if you have but a stony 
desert in view as your pasture? I suppose the heart is a 


9 o 


ARM1NELL. 


binnacle with its needle pointing to the pole — though each 
man may have a different pole. South of the equator, the 
needle points reversedly to what it pointed north of it. An 
anchor, an iron link, a nail even may divert the needle, but 
to something it must turn.” 

“ Miss Inglett — had Moses any personal hope to reach 
and establish himself in the land flowing with milk and 
honey, when he led Israel from the brick-kilns ? He was 
to die within sight of the land, and not to set foot thereon.” 

“ But, Mr. Saltren ; who are your Israel ? Where are the 
brick-kilns? Who are the oppressors? ” 

“Can you ask?” The tutor paused and looked at the 
girl. “ But I suppose you fail to see that the whole of the 
civilised world is an Egypt, in which some are taskmasters 
and others slaves ; some enjoy and others suffer. Miss 
Inglett — you have somehow invited my confidence, and I 
cannot withhold it. It is quite impossible that the world 
can go on as it has been, with one class drawing to itself all 
that life has to offer of happiness, and another class doomed 
to toil and hunger and sweat, and have nothing of the light 
and laughter of life.” 

Arminell seated herself. 

“ Well,” she said, “ as Giles is playing with his wooden 
animals, trotting out the contents of his ark ; let us turn 
out some of the strange creatures that are stuffed in our 
skulls, and marshal them. I have been opening the window 
of my ark to-day, and sending forth enquiries, but not a 
blade of olive has been brought to me.” 

f ‘ As for the ark of my head,” said the tutor, with a bitter 
smile, “it is the reverse of that of Noah. He sent forth 
raven and dove, and the dove returned, but the raven re- 
mained abroad. With me, the dark thoughts fly over the 
flood and come home to roost ; the dove-like ones — never.” 

“I am rather disposed,” said Arminell, laughing, “to 
liken my head to a rookery in May. The matured thoughts 


ARMINELL. 


91 


are a-w >ig and wheeling, and the just fledged ones stand 
cawing at the edge of their nests, with fluttering wings, 
afraid U< lly, and afraid to stay and be shot.” 

“To be sho-t ? — by whom ? ” 

‘ ‘ T erhaps p by your wit. Perhaps by my lord’s blunderbuss. ” 

“ I will not \t\ ?1 any of my poor wit at them. Let your 
thoughts hop foith boldly that I may have a sight of them.” 

An exclamation* of distress from Giles. 

“What is the matter r” asked Arminell, turning to her 
brother. 

“ The giraffe has broken his leg, and I want him to stand 
because he has such a long neck.” 

“ If you were manly, Giles, you would not say, the giraffe 
has broken his leg 1 , but — I. have broken the giraffe’s leg.” 

“ But I did not, Armie. lie had been packed too tightly 
with the other beasts, and his leg was so bent that it broke.” 

“ Mend it with glue,” she ad vised. 

“ I can’t — it is wrong to melt glue on Sunday. Mamma 
would not like it.” 

The conversation had been broken along with the giraffe’s 
leg, and neither Arminell nor young Saltren resumed it for 
some time. Presently the girl said, “Mr. Saltren, do you 
know what sort of men Addison called Fribblers? They 
are among men what flirts are among women, drawing girls 
on and then disappointing them. There are plenty of flirts 
and fribblers in other matters. There are flirts and fribblers 
with great social and religious questions, who play with 
them, trifle with them, hover about them, simulate a lively 
interest in them, and then — when you expect of them a 
decision and action on that decision, away they fly in 
another direction, and shake all interest and inquiry out of 
their thoughts. I have no patience with such flirts' or 
fribblers.” She spoke with a little bitterness. She was 
thinking of her step-mother. The tutor knew it, but did 
not allow her to see that he did. 


92 


ARMINELL. 


“Do you not think,” he said, “that they fribble from a 
sense of incompetence to grapple with these questions ? 
The problems interest them up to a certain point. r \ hen 
they see that they are too large for them, or they entail 
consequences they shrink from accepting, consequences 
that will cost them too dear, and they withdraw.” 

“ Like the young man in the Gospel who went away 
sorrowful for he had great possessions. He was a fribb'.er.” 

“Exactly. He was a fribbler. He was insincere and 
unheroic. ” 

“ I could not fribble,” said Arminell, vehemently. “If 
I see that a cause is right, I must pursue it at whatsoever 
consequence to myself. It is of the essence of humdrum 
to fribble. Do you know, Mr. Saltren, I have had a 
puzzling problem set before me to-day, and I shall have no 
rest till I have worked it out? Why is there so much 
wretchedness, so much inequality in the world ? ” 

“ Why was Giles’ giraffe’s leg broken ? ” 

Arminell looked at him with surprise, suspecting that in- 
stead of answering her, he was about to turn off the subject 
with a joke. 

“The world,” said Saltren, ‘is like Giles’ Noah’s Ark, 
packed full — over lull — of creatures of all kinds, and packed 
so badly that they impinge on, bruise, and break each other. 
Not only is the giraffe’s leg broken, but so are the rim of 
Noah’s hat, and the ear of the sheep, and the tusk of the 
elephant. It is a congeries of cripples. We may change 
their order, and we only make fresh abrasions. The pro- 
boscis of the elephant runs into the side of the lamb, and 
Noah’s hat has been knocked off by the tail of the raven. 
However you may assort the beasts, however carefully you 
may pack them, you cannot prevent their doing each other 
damage.” 

Mr. Saltren turned to little Giles and said : — 

“ Bring us your box of bricks, my boy.” 


ARMINELL. 93 

“ It is Sunday,” answered the child. “ Mamma would 
not wish me to play with them.” 

“I do not wish to make a Sabbath-breaker of you,’ 
answered the tutor, “ nor are your sister and I going to dc 
other than build Babel with them — which is permissible o / 
a Sunday.” 

The little boy slid off his seat, went to his cupboard, and 
speedily produced the required box, which he gave to Mr 
Saltren. , 

The tutor drew forth the lid. The bricks were all in 
place compacted in perfect order. 

Then he said, with half-sneer, half-laugh, “There are no 
gaps between them. The whole assemblage firm as it were 
one block. Not a breakage anywhere, not room for a 
breakage.” 

“ No,” said Arminell, “ of course not. They all fit exactly 
because they are all cubes. The bricks,” she laughed, 
“ have no long necks like the giraffe, or legs or horns, or 
proboscis, or broad-brimmed hats, liable to be broken. Of 
course they fit together.” 

“ If you shake the ark — the least concussion produces a 
breakage, one or two beasts suffer. You may toss the box 
of bricks about ; and nothing is hurt. Why ? ” 

Arminell was impatient. “ Of course the reason is 
plain.” 

“ The reason is plain. The bricks are all equal. If it 
were so in the world of men, there would be no jars, no 
fractures, no abrasions, but concord, compactness, peace.” 

Arminell said nothing. She closed her eyes and sat 
looking at the bricks, then at the animals Giles had arranged. 

The tutor said no more, but his eyes, bright and eager, 
were on the girl’s face. 

Presently Arminell had gathered her thoughts together 
sufficiently to speak. 

“That, then, is the solution you offer to my problem. 


94 


ARM IN ELL. 


But to me it does not seem solved. There the animals 
are. They are animals — and not bricks.” 

“They are animals, true, but they must be shaken and 
shaken t gether, till all their excrescences are rubbed away, 
and then they will fit together and find sufficiency of room. 
That is how marbles are made. Shapeless masses of stone 
are put in a bag and rattled till all their edges and angles 
are rattled off.” 

“ What an ark would remain ! You complain of some 
animals crippling others, this scheme of yours would involve 
a universal mutilation — the animals resolved into undis- 
tinguishable, shapeless, uninteresting trunks. The only 
creature that would come out scatheless would be the slug. 
All the rest would be levelled down to the condition of that 
creature — which is a digesting tube, and nothing more.” 
Then Arminell stood up. “ It is time for me to be off,” 
she said; “her ladyship will be back from church, and oh! 
Mr. Saltren, I have interfered with the Psalms and 
Lessons.” 


CHAPTER XL 


IN THE AVENUE. 

According to the classic story, the Sphinx demanded of all 
who visited her the solution of an enigma — and that enigma 
was Ma?i . 

Suddenly, unexpectedly, on a quiet ordinary Sunday 
morning, Arminell, a young girl without experience, had 
been confronted with the Sphinx, and set the same enigma, 
an enigma involving others, like tne perforated Chinese 
puzzie-balls, an enigma that has been essayed and answered 
repeatedly, yet always remains insoluble, that, as it has 
assumed fresh aspects, has developed new perplexities. 
Arminell had been wearied with the routire and restraint of 
social life, its commonplace duties and conventionalities, 
and had been fired with that generous though mistaken dis- 
like to the insincerities and formalities of civilisation, so 
often found among the young — generous, because bred of 
truth ; mistaken, because it ignores the fact that the insin- 
cerities impose on no one, and the formalities are made of 
mutual compromises, such as render life, social life, 
possible. 

Arminell was in this rebellious mood, when she was 
brought face to face with a problem beyond her powers to 
unravel. She might as well, with a rudimentary knowledge 
of algebraic symbols, have been set to work out Euler’s 
proof of the Binomial Theorem. She was like Fatima when 
she opened Blue-Beard’s secret chamber, and saw in it an 


96 


ARMINELL. 


array of victims. Of these victims disclosed to her, one 
was Jingles, another Patience Kite ; then came Captain 
Saltren and his wife ; and next hung in the dismal cabinet 
of horrors, Samuel Ceely and Joan Melhuish. The world 
was indeed a Blue-Beard’s room. If you but turned the 
key you saw an array of misery and tearful faces, and hearts 
with blood distilling from them. It was more than that — it 
was a box with a Jack in it. She had touched the spring, 
and a monster had flown up in her face, not to be com- 
pressed and buttoned down again. 

How could the facts of existence be reconciled with the 
idea of Divine Justice? On one side were men and women 
born to wealth and position and happiness ; on the other, 
men and women denied the least of the blessings of life. 
Why were some of God’s creatures petted and pampered, 
and others kicked about and maltreated ? Was the world 
of men so made from the beginning, or had things so come 
about through man’s mismanagement, and if so, where was 
the over-ruling Providence which governed the world ? 
When the Noah’s Ark arrived new from the great toy-shop 
whence issue the planets and spheres, were all the figures 
round and fitted together, only afterwards in the rearrange- 
ment to impinge on and mutilate each other? Or had they 
been all alike in the beginning and had developed their 
horns and proboscises, their tusks and broad-brimmed hats? 
Life is a sort of pantomime, that begins with a fairy tale, 
leads to a transformation scene, and ends, perhaps, with 
low comedy. In a moment when we least expect it, ensues 
a blaze of light, a spectacular arrangement of performers, 
and then, away fall the trappings of splendour, and forth, 
from under them, leap out harlequin, clown, and pantaloon. 
The knights cast off their silver armour, the fairies shed 
their gauzy wings, kings and queens depose their crowns 
and sceptres, and there are revealed to us ordinary men and 
women, with streaks of paint on their faces, and patches of 


ARMINELL. 97 

powder in their hair, perpetrating dismal jokes, the point of 
which we fancy is levelled at ourselves. 

To some men and women the transformation scene 
arrives late in life, but to all inevitably at some time ; and 
then when the scene on the stage before us is changed, a 
greater transformation ensues within. 

When we were children we believed that everything 
glittering was gold, that men were disinterested and women 
sincere. The transformation scene came on us, perhaps 
with coruscations of light and grouping of colours and 
actors, perhaps without, and went by, leaving us mistrustful 
of every person, doubtful of everything, sceptical, cynical, 
disenchanted. Is not — to take a crucial case — marriage 
itself a grand transformation scene that closes the idyl of 
youth, and opens the drama of middle age ? We live for a 
while in a fairy world, the flowers blgze with the most 
brilliant colours, the air is spiced as the breezes of Ceylon, 
angels converse with men, and sing gethereal music, manna 
floats down from heaven, containing in itself all sweetness ; 
sun and moon stand still o’er us, over against each other, 
not to witness a conflict, as of old in Ajalon, but to brighten 
and prolong the day of glamour. Then the bride appears 
before us, as Eve appeared to Adam, unutterably beautiful 
and perfect and innocent, and we kneel in a rapture, and 
dare not breathe, dare not speak, nor stir; and swoon in an 
ecstasy of wonder and adoration. 

Then tingle the marriage bells. The transformation 
scene is well set with bridesmaids and orange-blossoms, and 
a wedding breakfast, postboys with favours, and a shower 
of rice, and then — ? 

The fairy tale is over. The first part of the pantomime is 
over. The colours have lost their brilliancy, the flowers 
shrivel, the scents are resolved into smells of everyday life, 
broiled bacon, cabbage water, and the light is eclipsed as by a 
November fog. The men for the way-rate, the water-rate, and 

G 


9 8 


ARMINELL. 


the gas-rate are urgent to have a word with us. There descend 
on our table at every quarter most bitter bills— those of the 
butcher and the green-grocer, the milliner’s little account, 
and the ■ heavy itemless bill from the doctor. What shall 
we say about our Eve, the beautiful, the all-but divine, the 
ideal woman ? The all-but divine turns out to have a 
touchy temper and a twanging tongue, falls out with her 
cook, dismisses her, and consequently serves you cold 
mutton and underboiled potatoes. 

The transformation is complete, and how does it leave 
us ? In a rage at our folly ? Cursing our idealism ? 
Rasped and irritable ? Withdrawing more and more from 
the society of our Eve, and our Eden turned to an espalier 
garden, to our club ? So it is in many cases. The trans- 
formation scene is a trial, and certain ones there are that 
never recover the shock of disenchantment ; but there are 
others, on the other hand, who endure, and to them comes 
in the end a reward. These continue to sit in their box, 
listless, paring their nails, turning the programme face down- 
wards. Half contemptuously, wholly void of interest, they 
lend a dull ear to what follows, and look on with a wonder- 
ing eye, convinced that the rest is farce and buffoonery and 
a vexation of spirit, which must however be sat through ; 
then, little by little % fresh interests arise, tiny new actors 
invade the stage, with sweet but feeble voices, saying no- 
thing of point, yet full of poetry. The magic begins to 
work once more, the little fingers weave a spell that lays 
hold of heart and brain, and conjures up a new world of 
fantasy. The flowers re-open and flush with colour, the 
balmy air fans our jaded faces, again the songs of angels 
reach our ears, the clouds dispel, the manna falls, Eve 
resumes her beauty, not the old beauty of childlike inno- 
cence and freshness, but that of ripened womanhood, of 
sweet maternity, of self-command and self-devotion. 

We sit hushed with our head in our handstand look with 


ARMINELL. 


99 


intense eye, and listen with sharpened ear, and the tears 
rise and run down our cheeks. We have forgotten the old 
Eden with its tantastic imaginations, in the more matured, 
the richer, the fuller, and above all the more real paradise 
that is now revealed. 

In the case of Arminell Inglett there was no enchantment 
of colour, no setting of tableau, for the transformation 
scene ; it came on her suddenly but also quietly. In one 
day, on a quiet country Sunday, when she walked out of 
the dull and stuffy school, she passed, as it were, through a 
veil, out of childland into the realm of Sphinx. 

In the evening, after a dull dinner, instead of remaining in 
the drawing-room with my lady, who had taken up a 
magazine, Arminell put a shawl over her head and shoulders, 
went forth into the garden, and thence to the avenue. 

The evening was pleasantly warm, the weather beautiful ; 
beneath the trees the dew did not fall heavily. A new 
moon was shining. The girl thought over what she had 
heard and seen that day — over the troubles and wrongs of 
Captain Saltren, driven from his occupation, and yet chained 
to the house that was his own, and with which he would not 
part ; over the defiant scepticism of Patience Kite, at war 
in heart with God and man ; over the suffering lives of 
Samuel and Joan, united in heart, yet severed by fate, look- 
ing to a common grave as the marriage bed, and Arminell 
felt almost contempt for these latter, because they accepted 
their lot without resentment. She thought over what young 
Mr. Saltren had said about his own position, and she was 
able to understand that it was one of difficulty and discom- 
fort. 

Then she turned her mind to the Sunday-school, where, 
whilst outside of it, within the narrow confines of Orleigh 
parish, there was so much of trouble and perplexity, my 
lady was placidly teaching the children to recite as parrots 
the names of the books of the Apocrypha, which they were 


TOO 


ARMINELL. 


not to read for the establishment of doctrine, and Captain 
Tubb was enunciating arrant nonsense about the names of 
the Sundays preceding Lent. 

The avenue was composed of ancient oaks. It was 
reached from the garden, which intervened between the 
house and it. The avenue was not perfectly in line, 
because the lay of the land did not admit of its being 
carried at great length without a curve, following the slope 
of the hill that rose above it, and fell away below in park- 
land to the river. 

The walk was gravelled with white spar. It commanded 
an exquisite view down the valley of the Ore, over rich 
meadow-land and pasture, dotted with clumps of trees, 
beech, chestnut, and Scotch pine. A line of alders 
marked the course of the river, to where, by means of a 
dam, it had been widened into a lake. On the further side 
of the river, the ground gently rose in grassy sweeps to the 
wooded hills. To the south-west the river wound away 
about shoulders of richly-clothed hills, closing in on each 
other, fold on fold. The avenue was most delightful in the 
evening when the setting sun gilded the valley with its 
slant beams, turned the trunks of the pines scarlet, and cast 
the shadows of the park trees a purple blue on the illumin- 
ated grass. 

Oaks do not readily accommodate themselves to form 
avenues, they are contorted, gnarled, consequently oak 
avenues are rarely met with. That at Orleigh had the 
charm of being uncommon. 

The evening was still, the sky was full of light, so much 
so that the stars hardly showed. The light spread as a veil 
from the north, from behind the Orleigh woods, and 
reflected itself in the dew that bathed the grass. Arminell 
was attached to this walk, in great measure because she 
could at almost all times saunter in it undisturbed. 

She had not, however, on this occasion, been in it half 


ARMINELL. 


TOX 


an hour, before she saw her father coming to her. He had 
left his wine ; there were, as it happened, no guests in the 
house, and he and the tutor had not many topics in 
common. 

“ Well, Armie ! ” he said, “ I have come out to have a 
cigar, and lean on you. My lady told me I should find 
you here.” 

“ And, papa, I am so glad you have come, for I want to 
have a word with you.” 

“About what, child?” Lord Lame ton was a direct 
man — a man in his position mu<t be direct to get through 
all the business that falls to him, business which he cannot 
escape from, however much he may desire it. 

“ Papa,” said Arminell, “ it is about the Saltrens.” 

“ What about them ? ” 

“ If you give up the manganese — what is Captain Saltren 
to do ? ” 

“ Stephen will find work somewhere, never fear.” 

“ But he cannot leave his house.” 

“ That he will have to sell ; the railway company want 
to cross Chillacombe at that point. He will get a good 
price, far beyond the value of the house and plot of land.” 

“ Papa — must the manganese be given up ? ” 

“ Of course it must. I have no intention of allowing 
myself to be undermined.” . 

“ But it is so cruel to the men who worked on it.” 

“ Manganese no longer pays for working. There ha 
been a loss on the mine for the last five years. We are 
driven out of the market by the Eiffel manganese. The 
Germans work at less wage, and our men refuse to have 
their wage reduced.” 

“ But what are the miners to do ? ” 

“ They were given warning that the mine would be 
closed, as long as five years ago ; and the warning has been 
renewed every year since. They have known that they 


102 


ARMINELL. 


must seek employment elsewhere. They will have to go 
after work, work will not come to them — it is the same in 
every trade. All businesses are liable to fluctuations, some 
to extinction. When the detonating cap was invented, the 
old trade of flint chipping on the Sussex downs began to 
languish ; with the discovery of the lucifer match it ex- 
pired altogether. When adhesive envelopes were intro- 
duced, the wafer-makers and sealing-wax makers were 
thrown out of work, and the former trade was killed out- 
right. I was wont to harvest oak-bark annually, and put 
many hundreds of pounds in my pocket. Now the 
Americans have superseded tan by some chemical com- 
position, and there is no further sale for bark. I am so 
many hundreds of pounds the poorer. ” 

“Yes, papa, that is true enough, but you have a resisting 
power in you that others have not. You have your rents 
and other sources of income to fall back on ; these poor 
tradesmen and miners and artizans have none. I have read 
that in Manitoba the secret of the magnificent corn crops is 
found in this, that the ground is frozen in winter many feet 
deep, and remains frozen in the depths all summer, but 
gradually thaws and sends up from below the released 
water to nourish the roots of the wheat, which are thus fed 
by an unfailing subterranean fountain. It is so with you, 
you are always heavy in purse and flush in pocket, because 
you also have your sources always oozing up under your 
roots.” 

“ My dear Armie, my subterranean source — the man- 
ganese — is exhausted ; for five years instead of being a 
source it has been a sink.” 

“Whereas,” continued Arminell, “the poor and the 
artizan lie on shelfy rock, with shallow soil above it. A 
drought — a week of sun — and they are parched up and 
perish.” 

“ My dear girl, the analogy is false. The difference be- 


ARMINELL. 


103 


tween us is between the rooted and the movable creature. 
Do they not live on us, eat us, consume our superfluity ? 
We are vegetables — that root in the soil, and the tradesmen 
and artizans nibble and browse on us. The richer our leaf, 
the more succulent our juices, the more nutriment we supply 
to them. When they have eaten us down to the soil, they 
move off to other pastures and nibble and browse there. 
When we have recovered, and send up fresh shoots, back 
they come, munch, munch, munch. If one supply fails, 
others open. There is equipoise — I dare say there are 
twice as many hands employed in making matches and 
adhesive envelopes now, as there were of old chipping flints 
and making wafers.” 

“ That may be, but the drying up of one spring before 
another opens must cause distress. Where is that other 
one, that the necessitous may drink of it ? Ishmael was 
dying of thirst in the desert on his mother Hagar’s lap, 
within a stone’s throw of a well of which neither knew till it 
was shown them by an angel.” 

“ Of course there is momentary distress, but the means 
of locomotion are now so great that every man can go about 
in quest of work. Things always right themselves in the 
end.” 

“ They do not right themselves without the crushing and 
killing of some in the process. Tell me, papa, how is this 
to be explained? I have to-day encountered two poor 
creatures who have loved each other for twenty years, and 
are too abject in their poverty to be able even now to 
marry. No fault of either accounts for this. Accident, 
misfortune, divide them— such things ought not to be.” 

“ But they are— they cannot be helped.” 

“ They ought not to be — there must be fault somewhere. 
Either Providence in ruling destinies rules them crooktd, 
or the social arrangements brought about by civilization are 
to blame.” 


io4 


ARMINELL. 


£< Here, Armie, I cannot follow you. I am content with 
the providential ordering of the world.” 

“ Of coarse you are, papa, on fifty thousand a year.” 

“ You interrupt me. I say I am content with the social 
structure as built up by civilization.” 

“ I have no doubt about it — you are a peer. But what 
I want to know is, how do the providential and social 
arrangements look to the Fredericks with the Empty 
Pockets, not what aspect they wear to Maximilian and Le 
Grand Monarque. Do you suppose that Captain Saltren is 
content that his livelihood should be snatched from him ; 
or Patience Kite that her father and mother should have 
died, leaving her in infancy a waif ; or Samuel Ceely, that 
he should have blown off his hand and blown away his life’s 
happiness with it, and dislocated his hip and put his fortunes 
for ever out of joint thereby, so as to be for ever incapaci- 
tated from making himself a home, and having a wife and 
little children to cling about his neck and call him father? ** 

“ Old Sam was not all he ought to have been before he 
met with his accidents.” 

“ Nor are any of us all we ought to be. Papa, why should it 
have fallen to your lot to have two wives, and Samuel 
Ceely be denied even one ? ” 

“Upon my word, Armie, I cannot tell.” 

“ I do not suppose you can see how those are who live on 
the north side of the hill always in shade and covered with 
mildew, when you bask on the south side always in sun 
where the strawberries ripen early, and the roses bloom V 
Christmas.” 

“ I beg your pardon, child, I have had my privations. 
We cannot afford to go to town this season. I have had to 
make a reduction in my rents of twenty per cent. I get 
nothing from my Irish property, cannot sell my bark, lose 
by my manganese. Are you satisfied ? ” 

“ No, papa, your privations are loss of luxuries, not of 


ARMINELL. 


105 

necessaries. Those who have been exposed to buffets of 
fortune, been scourged by the cynical and cruel caprice 
which rules civilized life, will rise up and exact their 
portions of life’s pleasures and comforts. They will say, — 
we will not be exposed to the chance of being full to day 
and empty to-morrow, of working without hope — like 
Samuel and Joan.” 

“ Sam does not work.” 

“That is the fault of Providence which blew off his 
hand and distorted his leg. I say, the needy and the 
workers will ask why we should be well-dressed, well- 
housed, well-fed, hear good music, buy good pictures, ride 

good horses ” her thoughts moved faster than her 

words ; she broke off her sentence without finishing it. 
“ Papa ! why, at a meet, should Giles have his pony and 
little Cribbage run on his feet ? ” 

“ Upon my soul,” answered Lord Lamerton, “ I can’t 
answer in any other way than this — because I keep a pony 
and the rector does not for his little boy.” 

“ But, papa, I think the time must come when you will 
have to justify your riding a good hunter and wearing a red 
coat; and 1 for wearing a tailor-made habit, whilst Miss 
Jones has but a skirt.” 

“ Look here, Armie,” said her father, “ how dense, how 
like snow the fog is lying on the pasture by the water.” 

“ Yes, papa, but ” 

“ There is no fog here, on the higher land.” 

“No, papa.” 

“ There is frost below when there is none here.” 

“ Yes, papa.” 

“ Why so ? ” 

“ Because that lies low, and this high.” 

“ But why should that lie low, and this high ? ” 

“ Of course, because — it is the configuration of the 
land.” 


io6 


ARMINELL. 


“ But how unreasonable, how unjust, that there should 
be such configuration of the land, as you call it. There 
should be no elevations and no depressions anywhere — a 
universal flat is the landscape for you.” 

Arminell winced. She saw the drift of her father’s 
remarks. 

“ My dear,” he said, “ there must be inequalities in the 
social level, but I am not sure that these very inequalities 
do not give charm and richness to the social picture. 
Each level has its special flora. The marigold and the 
milkmaid and the forget-me-not love the low moist bottom 
where the fog and frost hang, and will not thrive here. 
Those ups and downs, those hills and valleys which so 
shock your sense of fitness, are the secret of richness, are 
the secret of fertility. In equatorial Africa, Dr. Schweinfurth 
found a dead level and perennial swamp. In Mid-Asia, 
Hue traversed an Alpine plateau absolutely sterile. It is a 
very unreasonable thing to some that our moors should 
contain so many acres of unprofitable bog, that they should 
be sponges receiving, and growing nothing. They say that 
we, the wealthy, are these absorbing sponges, unprofitable 
bogs of capital. But, my dear child, if the bogs were all 
drained, all the water would run off as fast as it fell. They 
retain the water and gradually discharge it on the thirsty 
lowlands. And so is it with us. We spend what we 
receive and enrich therewith those beneath. But come — I 
shall go in. I am feeling chilled.” 

“ I will take another turn first,” said Arminell. 

“ Don’t fret yourself, my dear,” said her father, “ about 
these matters. Take the world as it is.” 

“ Papa — that advice comes too late. I cannot.” 


CHAPTER XII. 


SINTRAM. 

Lord Lamerton returned to the house ; he threw away his 
cigar-end, and went in at the snuggery door, the door into 
the room whither the gentlemen retired for pipes and spirits 
and soda-water, a room ornamented with foxes’ heads and 
brushes, whips, hunting-pictures, and odds and ends of all 
sorts. He shut the door and passed , through it into that 
part of the house in which was the schoolroom, and Giles’ 
sleeping apartment. As he entered the passage, Lord 
Lamerton heard piercing shrieks, as from a child yelling in 
terror or pain. 

In a moment, Lord Lamerton ran up the stairs towards 
the bedroom of his son. The nurse was there already, with 
a light, and was sitting on the bed, endeavouring to pacify 
the child. Giles sat up in his night-shirt, in the bed clothes, 
with his eyes wide open, his fair head disordered, striking 
out with his hands in recurring paroxysms of terror. 

“ What is the matter with him ? ” asked the father. 

“ My lord— he has been dreaming. He has had one or 
two of these fits before. Perhaps his fever and cold have 
had to do with it.” Then hastily to Giles who began to 
kick and beat, and went into a fresh fit of cries, “ There, 
there, my dear, your papa has come to see you. Have you 
nothing to say to him ? ” 

But the little boy was not to be quieted. He was either 
still asleep, or, if awake, he saw something that bereft him 
of the power of regarding anything else. 


ARMINELL. 


108 

“There will be no questioning him, my lord, till he is 
thoroughly roused,” said the nurse. 

“ Bring me a glass of water.” 

Whilst the woman went for the tumbler, Lord Lamerton 
seated himself on the bedside, and drew the little boy up, 
and seated him on his lap. 

“ Giles, my darling, what is the matter ? ” 

Then the little fellow clung round his father’s neck, and 
the tears broke from his eyes, and he began to sob. 

“ What is the matter, my pet, tell me ? Have you had 
bad dreams ? Here, drink this draught of cold water.” 

“ No, no, take' it away,” said the child. “ I want papa 
to stay. Papa, you won’t be taken off, will you ? Papa, 
you will not leave me, will you ? ” 

“ No, my dear. What have you been thinking about ? ” 

“ I have not been thinking. I saw it.” 

“ Saw what, Giles ? ” 

Lord Lamerton stroked the boy’s hair ; it was wet with 
perspiration, and now his cheeks were overflowed with 
tears. The shrieks had ceased. He had recovered suffi- 
cient consciousness to control himself ; “ Papa I was at the 
window.” 

“ What, in your night-shirt ? After you had been put to 
bed ? That was wrong. With your heavy cold you should 
not have left your bed.” 

The child seemed puzzled. 

“Papa, I do not understand how it was. I would not 
have left my bed for the world, if I thought you did not 
wish it ; and I do not remember getting out — still, I must 
have got out ; for I was at the window.” 

“ He has not left his bed. He has been dreaming, my 
lord,” explained the nurse in an undertone; and Lord 
Lamerton nodded. 

“Papa, dear.” 

“ Yes, my pet.” 


ARMINELL. 


IO9 


“ Are you listening to me ? ” 

“ I am all attention.” 

“Papa, I was at the window. But I am very sorry that I was 
there, if you are annoyed. I will not do it again, dear papa. 
And the moon was shining brightly on the drive. You 
know how white the gravel is. It was very white with the 
moon on it. I did not feel at all cold, papa ; feel me, I am 
quite warm.” 

“ Yes, my treasure, go on with your story.” 

“ Then I watched something black come all the way up 
the drive, from the lodge-gates, through the park. I could 
not at first make out what it was, but I saw that it was 
something very, very black, and it came on slowly like a 
great beetle. But when it was near, then I saw it was a 
coach drawn by four black horses, and there was a man on 
the box, driving, and he was in black. There was no silver 
nor brass mounting to the harness of the horses, or I should 
have seen it sparkle in the moonlight. And, dear papa, the 
coach stole on without making any noise. I saw the horses 
trotting, and the wheels of the coach turning, but there was 
no sound at all on the gravel. Was that not strange ? ” 

“ Very strange indeed, my dear.” 

“ But there was something much stranger. I saw that 
the horses had no heads, and also that the coachman had 
no head. His hat with the long weeper was on the top of 
the carriage. He could not wear it because he was without 
a head. Was not that queer ? ” 

“Very queer,” answered Lord Lamerton, and signed to 
the nurse to leave the room. His face looked grave, and 
he held the little boy to his heart, and kissed his forehead 
with lips that somewhat quivered. 

“Then, papa, the carriage stopped at the entrance, and I 
could see through the window panes to the gravel with the 
moon on it, on the other side, and there was no one at all 
in the coach. It was quite, quite empty.” 


no 


ARMINELL. 


“ Did you not think it was Dr. Blewett come to see you, 
«ny little man ? ” 

“No, papa, I did not think anything about whose coach 
it was. But when it remained at the door, and no one got 
out, I saw it must be staying for some one to enter it.” 

“ And did any one come out of the house ? ” 

Then the little boy began to sob again, and cling round 
his father’s neck, and kiss him. 

“ Well, my dear Giles ? ” 

“ Oh, papa ! — you will not go away ! — I saw you come 
out of the door, and you went away in the coach — ” 

“ I ! ” Lord Lamerton drew a sigh of relief. The dream 
of the dear little fellow, associated with his illness, had pro- 
duced an uneasy effect on his father’s mind — he feared it 
might portend the loss of the boy, but if the carriage waited 
only for himself — ! 

“ That, papa, was why I cried, and was frightened. You 
will not go ! you must not go !” The child trembled, clasping 
his father, and rubbing his wet cheek against his father’s face. 

Then Lord Lamerton called the nurse from the next room. 
“ Master Giles,” he said, “ is not thoroughly roused. The 
current of his thoughts must be diverted. Throw that thick 
shawl over him. I will carry him down into the drawing- 
room to my lady, and show him a picture-book. Then he 
will forget his dream and go to sleep. Come for him in a 
quarter of an hour.” 

The nurse did as required. Then Lord Lamerton stood 
up, carrying his son, who laid his head on his father’s 
shoulders, and so he bore him through the passages and 
down the grand staircase to the drawing-room. The little 
fair face rested on the shoulder, with the fair hair hanging 
down over the father’s back, and one hand was clutched in 
the collar. Lord Lamerton kissed the little hand. He was 
not afraid of making the child’s cold worse, the evening was 
so warm. 


ARMINELL. 


Ill 


Lady Lamerton was sitting on a settee with a reading 
lamp on a table at her side, engaged on an article in one of 
the contemporary magazines, on Decay of Belief in the 
World. 

Lady Lamerton was a good woman, who on Sunday 
would on no account read a novel, or a book of travels, or 
of profane history. Her Sabbatarianism was a habit that 
had survived from her childish education, long after she had 
come to doubt its obligation or advisability. But, though 
she would not read a book of travels, memoirs or history, 
she had no scruple in reading religious polemical literature. 
On one Sunday she found that miracles were incredible by 
intelligent beings, and next Sunday she had her faith in the 
miraculous re-established on the massive basis of a maga- 
zine article. 

For an entire fortnight she laboured under the impression 
that Christianity had not a leg to stand on, and then, on 
the strength of another article, was sure it stood on as 
many as a centipede. For a while she supposed that dog- 
mas were the cast cocoons of a living religion, and then, 
newly instructed, harboured the belief that it was as impos- 
sible to preserve the spirit of religion without them as it is 
to keep essences without bottles. At one time she sup- 
posed the articles of the creed to be the shackles of faith, 
and then that they were the characters by which faith was 
decipherable. 

The sun was at one time supposed to be a solid incan- 
descent ball, but astronomers probed it with their probo- 
scises, and found that the body was enveloped in sundry 
wraps, which they termed photosphere and chromosphere, 
and which acted as jacket and overcoat to the body, which 
was declared to be black as that of a Hottentot. Some 
fresh proboscis-poking revealed the fact that the blackness 
supposed to be the sun-core was in fact an intervening 
vapour or rain of ash, and when this was perforated, the 


112 


ARMINELL. 


very body of the sun was seen, red as that of an Indian, 
sullenly glowing, lifeless, almost lightless, a cinder. More- 
over, the spectroscope was brought to analyse the constitu- 
ents of the photosphere and to determine the metals in a 
state of incandescence composing it. 

Lady Lamerton, looking through the telescopes of maga- 
zine articles and reviews, was continually seeing deeper into 
the great luminous, heat-giving orb of Christianity ; was 
shown behind its photosphere, taught to despise its chromo- 
sphere, and saw exhibited behind them blackness, exhausted 
force, the ash of extinct superstitions. The critical spectro- 
scope was, moreover, brought to bear on Christianity, and 
to analyse its luminous atmosphere, and resolve it into alien 
matter, none distinctively solar, all vulgar, terrestrial, and 
fusible. 

The astronomer assures us that the fuel of the sun must 
fail, and then the world will congeal and life disappear out 
of it, and the critic announces the speedy expiring of Chris- 
tianity. But, as — indifferent to the fact that the sun like a 
worn-out and made-up old beau is tottering to extinction — 
Lady Lamerton ordered summer bonnets, and laid out new 
azalea beds, just so was it with her religion. She continued 
to teach in Sunday-school, went to church regularly, read 
the Bible to sick people, did her duty in society, ordered 
her household, made home very dear to his lordship — in a 
word, lived in the light and heat of that same Christianity 
which she was assured, and by fits and starts believed, was an 
exploded superstition. As Lord Lamerton brought little 
Giles in his arms into the drawing-room, he whispered in 
his ear, “Not a word about the coach to mamma,” and 
Giles nodded. 

Lady Lamerton put her book aside and looked up. 

“ Oh, Lamerton ! What are you doing ? The boy is 
unwell, and ought to be in bed.” 

“ He has been dreaming, my dear ; has had the night- 


ARMINELL. 


113 

mare, and I have brought him down for change, to drive the 
frightening thoughts away. He will not take cold, he is in 
flannel, and the shawl is round him. Besides, the evening 
is warm.” 

“ He must not be here many minutes. He ought to be 
asleep,” said his mother. 

“My dear, I have promised him a look at a picture-book. 
It will make him forget his fancies. What have you over 
there ? ” 

“No Sunday stories or pictures, I fear.” 

“ Yonder is a book in red — illustrated. What is it ? ” 

“ ‘ Sintram ’ — it is not a Sunday book.” 

“ I have not read it for an age, but if I remember right, 
the D — comes into it.” 

“ If that be the case it is perhaps allowable.” 

“ What is the meaning of that picture ? ” asked the little 
boy, pointing to the first in the text. It was by Selous. It 
represented a great hall with a stone table in the centre, 
about which knights were seated, carousing. In the fore- 
ground was a boy kneeling, beating his head, apparently 
frantic. An old priest stood by, on one side, and a baron 
was starting from the table, and upsetting his goblet of 
wine. 

“ I cannot tell, I forget the story, it must be forty years 
since I read it. I have not my glasses. Pass the book to 
your mother, she will read.” 

Lady Lamerton drew the volume to her, and read as 
follows : — “ A boy, pale as death, with disordered hair and 
closed eyes, rushed into the hall, uttering a wild scream of 
terror, and clinging to the baron with both hands, shrieked 
piercingly, ‘Knight and father! Father and knight ! Death 
and another are closely pursuing me!’ An awful stillness 
lay like ice on the whole assembly, save that the boy 
screamed ever the fearful words.” 

“ It is not a pretty story,” said Lord Lamerton uneasily. 

H 


% 


ARMINELL. 


I 14 

“ Papa,” whispered the boy,^ “ I did not think that any- 
thing was following me. I thought” — his father’s hand 
pressed his shoulders — “ no, papa, I will not repeat it to 
mamma.” 

“ What is it, Giles ? ” asked his mother, looking up from 
the book. 

“ Nothing but this, my dear,” answered Lord Lamerton, 
“ that I told Giles not to talk about his dreams. He must 
forget them as quickly as possible.” 

“ What is that priest doing ? ” asked the child, pointing 
to the picture. 

Lady Lamerton read further. “ ‘ Dear Lord Biorn,’ said 
the chaplain, ‘ our eyes and thoughts have all been directed 
to you and your son in a wonderful manner ; but so it has 
been ordered by the providence of God.’” 

“ I think, Giles, we will have no more of ‘ Sintram ’ to- 
night. Let us look together at the album of photographs. 
I will show you the new likeness of Aunt Hermione.” 

“ Where is young Mr. Saltren ?” asked Lady Lamerton. 

“ I fancy he has gone to see his mother. If I remember 
aright, he said, after dinner, that he would stroll down to 
Chillacot.” 

“ There comes nurse,” said Lady Lamerton. “ Now, 
Giles, dear, you must go to sleep, and sleep like a top.” 

“ I will try, dear mamma.” But he clung to and kissed 
most lovingly, and still with a little distress in his flushed 
face, his father. He had not quite shaken off the impres- 
sion left by his dream. When the boy was going out at 
the door, keeping his head over his nurse’s shoulder, 
wrapped in the shawl, Lord Lamerton watched him lov- 
ingly. Then ensued a silence of a minute or two. It was 
broken by Lady Lamerton who said — 

“We really cannot go on any longer in the crypt.” 

“ The crypt ? ” 

“You must build us a new school-room. The basement 


ARMINELL, 


IJ 5 

of the keeper’s cottage is unendurable. It did as a make- 
shift through the winter, but in summer the closeness is 
insupportable. Besides, the noises overhead preclude 
teaching and prevent learning.” 

“ I will do what I can,” said Lord Lamerton ; “ but I 
want to avoid building this year, as I am not flush of money. 
Such a room will cost at least four hundred pounds. It 
must have some architectural character, as it will be near 
the church, and must not be an eyesore. I wish it were 
possible to set the miners to build, so as to relieve them ; 
but they are incapable of doing anything outside their 
tradeT” 

“ What will they do ? ” 

“ I cannot say. They have not been like the young 
larks in the fable. These were alarmed when they over- 
heard the farmer and his sons discuss the cutting of the 
corn. But the men have been forewarned and have taken 
no notice of the warnings. Now they are bewildered and 
alarmed because they are turned off.” 

“ Something must be done for them.” 

“ I have been considering the cutting of a new road to 
the proposed station ; but the position of the station can- 
not be determined tiil Saltren has consented to sell Chiila- 
cot, and he is obstinate and stupid about it.” 

“ Then you cannot cut it till you know where the station 
will be?” 

“ Exactly ; and Captain Saltren is obstructive. I am not 
at all sure that his right to the land could be maintained. 
I strongly suspect that I might reclaim it ; but I do not 
wish any unpleasantness.” 

“ Of course not. Is the road necessary ? ” 

“Not exactly necessary; but T suppose work for the 
winter must be found for the men. As we have not gone 
to town this season, and if as I propose, we abandon our 
projected tour to the Italian lakes in the autumn, 1 daresay 


it6 


ARMINELL. 


we can manage both the road and the school-room ; but I 
need not tell you, Julia, that I have had heavy losses. My 
Irish property brings me in not a groat. I have lost heavily 
through the failure of the Occidental Bank, and I h^ve 
reduced my rents, I am sorry for the men. Cornish min- 
ing is bad, or the fellows might have gone to Cornwall 
Perhaps if I find them work on the new road, mines may 
look up next year.” 

“Arminell has been speaking to me about Samuel Ceely. 
She wants him taken on,” said her ladyship. “She will 
pay for him out of her own pocket.” 

Lord Lamerton’s mouth twitched. “ Arminell has asked 
me why I should have been allowed two Lady Lamertons, 
and he not one Mrs. Ceely.” 

“ Arminell is an odd girl,” said her ladyship. “ But I 
am thankful to find her take some interest in the poor. It 
is a new phase in her life.” 

“ It seems to me,” said Lord Lamerton, “ that you and 
Armie are alike in one particular, and unlike in another. 
You both puzzle your brains with questions beyond your 
calibre, you with theological, she with social questions ; 
but you are unlike in this, that you take your perplexities 
easily, Arminell goes into a fever over hers.” 

“ It is a bitter sorrow to me that I cannot influence her,” 
said Lady Lamerton humbly. “ But I believe that no one 
devoid of definite opinions could acquire power over her. 
I see that so much can be said, and said with justice on all 
sides of every question, that all my opinions remain, and 
ever will remain, in abeyance.” 

“ I sincerely trust that the minx will not fall under the 
influence of those who are opinionated.” 

“ Arminell is young, vehement, and, as is usual with the 
young, indisposed to make allowance for those who oppose 
what commends itself to her mind, or for those who do not 
leap at conclusions with the same activity as herself.” 


ARMINELL. 


117 


“ And she is pert ! ” said Lord Lamerton. “ Upon my 
soul, Julia, it is going a little too far to take me to task for 
having been twice married. And again, when I said some- 
thing about my being content with the providential ordering 
of the world, she caught me up and told me that anyone 
with a coronet and fifty thousand a year would say the same. 
I have not that sum this year anyhow. Girls nowadays are 
born without the bump of reverence, and with that of self- 
assurance unduly developed.” 

Neither spoke for a few minutes. 

Presently Lord Lamerton, who was looking depressed, 
and was listening, said : 

“ Hark ! Is that Giles crying again ? ” 

“ I heard nothing.” 

“Possibly it was but my fancy. Poor little fellow. 
Something has upset him. It was unfortunate, Julia, our 
lighting on ‘ Sintram.’ ” 

He stood up. 

“ I am not easy about the dear little creaiure. Did you 
see, Julia, how he kissed me and clung to me ? ” 

“ He is very fond of you, Lamerton.” 

“ And I of him. I think I shall be more easy if I go up 
and see our Sintram, and learn whether he is asleep, or 
whether the bad dreams are threatening him. Poor little 
Sintram ! ” 

“You will come back, Lamerton ? ” 

“Yes, dear, when I have seen and kissed my little 
Sintram.” 


CHAPTER XIII. 


THE PRIVILEGED CLASS. 

“ Is it not a sad reflection,” said Lady Lamerton on the re- 
i urn of his lordship, “ that the men who influence others 
are those of one idea, in a word, the narrow ? Because 
they are borne in mental vision, ignorant and prejudiced, 
they throw the whole force of their wills in one direction, 
they become battering rams, and the harder their heads the 
heavier the blows they deal. If we have knowledge, 
breadth of vision, charity, we cease to be certain, are no 
longer bigots, and our power of impressing others fails in 
proportion to our liberality. I feel my own incompetence 
with Arminell, but not with Arminell alone. I am conscious 
of it when taking my Sunday class. I dare insist on no- 
thing, because I am convinced of nothing. I am so much 
afraid of laying stress on any religious topic, which has been, 
is, or may be controverted, that I restrain myself to the ex- 
planation of those facts which I know to be indisputable. 
I teach the children that when Ahasuerus sent young men 
with letters riding on dromedaries, these animals had two 
humps ; whereas when Rebekah lighted down off her camel 
to meet Isaac, her creature had but one hump. And I 
console the dying with the last bulletins of the Palestine 
Exploration Fund determining the site of Ezion Geber. 
You know, my dear Lamerton, that there are in the at- 
mosphere nitrogen which is the negative gas, oxygen which 
is positive, and carbonic acid which is deleterious to life. I 


ARMINELL. 


II 9 

suppose it is the same with the spiritual atmosphere 
breathed by the soul, only the oxygen is so hard — nay, to 
me so impossible to extract, and I am so scrupulous not to 
communicate any carbonic acid to my scholars, that I fill the 
lungs of their souls with nitrogen only — a long category of 
negatives.” 

“ What you teach matters little. The great fact of your 
kindness and sympathy and sense of duty remains undis- 
turbed, unassailable,” said Lord Lamerton. 

“ My dear,” said her ladyship, “ I wish I could be of 
more use than I am ; but I am like Mrs. Quickly in the 
* Merry Wives of Windsor,’ who held commissions simul- 
taneously for Doctor Caius, Slender and Fenton, and 
wished each and all success in his suit for sweet Anne Page. 
I am not a power, or anything appreciable, because my 
judgment hangs ever in suspense and flickers like a needle 
in a magnetic storm. When I hear our dear good rector 
lay down the law with thump of cushion in the pulpit, I 
know he is thoroughly sincere and that sincerity is the out- 
come of conviction. All this emphasis would go were he 
to read such-or-such an article in the Westminster Review , 
because his conviction would be sapped. But, without his 
conviction would he be of much use? Would he carry 
weight with his rustic audience ? They value his discourses 
as the Israelite valued the strong blast that brought quails. 
If his mighty lungs blew nothing but vagueness, would they 
care to listen, or i. they listened would they pick up any- 
thing where nothing was dropped? I am sure that the 
great leaders of men were men of one idea. Look at the 
apostles, illiterate fishermen, but convinced, and they upset 
heathendom. Look at Mahomet, an epileptic madman, be- 
lieving absolutely in only one thing — himself, and he 
founded Islam. Calvin, Luther, St. Bernard, Hildebrand, 
all were men of one idea, allowing of no Ifs and Buts to 
qualify. That was the secret of their strength. It is the 


I 20 


ARMINELL. 


convex glass that kindles a fire, not that which is 

even.” 

“ The narrow can only influence the ignorant.” 

“ The narrow will always influence the bulk of men, for 
the bulk of mankind is ignorant, not perhaps of the three 
R’s, but of the compensating forces which keep the social 
and political systems from flying to pieces.” 

“Thank heaven, Julia, the country is not in the hands of 
fanatics to whirl her to destruction.” 

“ How long will it remain so ? There are plenty of hot- 
brained Phaethons who think themselves capable of driving 
the horses of the sun, and who have not yet learned to 
control themselves. To my mind, Lamerton, our class is 
the fly-wheel that saves the watch from running down at a 
gallop, and marking no progress at all. In the chronometer 
the balance-wheel is made up of two metals with different 
powers of contraction and expansion, one holds the other 
in check, and produces equilibrium. The wheel oscillates 
this way, that way, and acts as a controlling power on the 
mainspring and modifies the action of the wheels. Our 
class is so constituted with its double character, is so 
brought into relation with all parties in politics, is so as- 
sociated with every kind of interest in the country, that it is 
swung this way, that way, is kept in perpetual vibration, and 
acts as an effective regulator on the violent forces in the 
political and social world — forces confined, and strong be- 
cause confined, forces which keep the machine going, but 
which uncontrolled would wreck it.” 

“I dare say you are right, Julia, I have no doubt the 
social classes are all as, and where they ought to be, super- 
posed as geologic strata, but wonderfully contorted, it must 
be allowed, in places. To change the subject — what have 
you said to Arminell about that fellow for whom she 
pleaded ? ” 

“ Samuel Ceely ? ” 


ARMINELL. 


121 


u Yes, that is his name.” 

“He is a poor creature,” said Lady Lamerton, “a cripple.” 

“ If I remember right he was a scamp at one time and 
got into one or two scrapes, but what they were, ’pon my 
soul, I do not remember.” 

“ He is harmless enough now,” said Lady Lamerton. 
“ I have him on my list of those for whom I pay into the 
shoe-club, and the clothing club, the blanket and the coal 
clubs. The rector’s wife said it was a pity he should miss 
the advantages, which he must do, as he is too poor to pay, 
and he needs them more than many who receive them. So 
I have him on my list of those for whom I pay. I have 
told Arminell that he can work in the glen. That requires 
to be done up, it has been neglected for so many years. 
The paths and the summer-house, the benches, the water- 
fall, are all out of order. Giles may like to play there. 
Arminell will pay the man out of her allowance, it is her own 
wish. And now, Lamerton, I also will change the subject, 
and that to one which I am not sure I ought to mention 
on a Sunday. I am glad for one thing, that we do not go 
to town for the season, as it will enable us to show some 
civility to the country people, the squires and the parsons. 
Really, when we have the house full of our friends, we can- 
not do it, the groups do not amalgamate, they have so few 
subjects in common. I have thought of a garden-party for 
Wednesday week. You will mind and make no engage- 
ments for that day.” 

“ I will book it — to be at home on Wednesday week.” 
Lord Lamerton seated himself, and the light of his wife’s 
reading lamp fell on his face. 

“Are you not feeling well?” she asked. “You look 
pale, dear.” 

“ It is nothing,” he replied. “ I may have caught a slight 
chill in the avenue, as no doubt the dew is falling, and there 
are no clouds in the sky. The night is very still and lovely, 


122 


ARMINELL. 


Julia. No — I think not — no, I cannot have been chilled 
there. I do not know what it is. Well — I will not say that 
either. To tell you the whole truth, I am worried.” 

“ Worried ? About what ? ” 

“ 1 am uneasy, for one thing, about Arminell. She has 
got queer lancies in her head. Giles also is not well ; and 
there is something further — in itself nothing, but though a 
trifle it is distressing me greatly.” 

“ What is it?” 

“The leaders of my choice pines, which I had planted 
about the * grounds, have been maliciously cut off. The 
thing has been done out of spite, and to hurt me, and yet 
the real sufferers are yet unborn. A hundred years hence 
these trees would have been admired for their stateliness — 
and now they are mutilated. I shall be dead and forgotten 
long before any tree I have put in comes to size. I am 
pained — this has been aimed at me, to wound me. I fear 
this has been done because I have refused to allow my 
house to be undermined.” 

“ Who can have done it ? ” 

“ I do not know. If I did know, I would not prosecute. 
That is one of the privileges of our privileged class — to 
bear injuries and impertinences without resentment. I am 
hurt — I am hurt greatly. 'The matter may be a trifle ” — his 
lordship stood up — “ but — after all I have done for the 
Orleigh people — it does seem unkind.” 

Lady Lamerton put out her hand, and took that of her 
husband. “ Never mind,” she said ; “ he who did it will 
come to regret it.” 

“ The injury does not touch the Lamertons alone,” said 
his lordship ; “ we throw open the park and gardens every 
Saturday to the public, and we allow Bands of Hope, and 
Girls’ Friendly Societies, and Choirs, and all sorts of agglo- 
merations of men to come here and picnic in our grounds 
and strew them with sandwich papers and empty ginger- 


ARMINELL: 


I23 


beer bottles, and cut their initials on the park gates and 
trees. A century hence the trees that have been mutilated 
would have grown into magnificence, and overshadowed 
heaven knows what — poli ical, social or religious holiday- 
taking companies and awkward squads.” 

“ Put in some more pines, next autumn.” 

“ What with rabbits and the public, planting is discourag- 
ing work. It costs a lot of money, and you get no satisfac- 
tion from it. My dear Julia, it is one of the privileges — no 
— drawbacks of our class, that we expose a wide surface to 
the envious and the evil-disposed. They can injure us in a 
thousand ways, whereas our powers of self-protection are 
unduly limited. If we try to save ourselves, we do our- 
selves injury, as pigs when swimming cut 6heir own throats 
with their fore-claws.” 

“ Never mind that. Whom shall we invite — or rather, 
whom must we omit ? I must send out cards of invitation 
to our garden party at once.” 

“ O, bother the garden party,” said his lordship wearily. 
“You and I hardly ever get a qqiet evening together, so 
now that we have one, let us forget the world outside and 
some of these exacting and embarrassing duties we owe it. 
Really, I envy those who, belonging to a less conspicuous 
sphere, have their cosy evenings at home, their privacy and 
peaceful joys. We are forced to live in publicity, we have 
to fill our house with guests, lay ourselves out to entertain 
them, keep a French cook for them — I am sure boiled 
mutton and caper sauce would content me, — stock our 
cellars for them, keep hunters and preserve the game for 
them. Upon my word, Julia, we are not suffered to live 
for ourselves. A selfish existence is with us impossible. 
No monks or nuns ever gave up half so much, and lived so 
completely for others, continually sacrificing their own 
pleasures, leisure, thoughts, time, to others, — as we, the 
British aristocracy.” 


124 


ARMINELL. 


“ You are out of spirits to-night, Lamerton.” His wife 
retained his hand, and pressed it. 

“ Then,” continued his lordship, following his own train 
of thought, and not answering his wife’s remark, perhaps 
because he did not hear it, so full was his mind of the topic 
then uppermost in it, “ then, Julia, consider — we are 
mounted specimens ; like those unfortunate worms in sour 
paste, and monsters in a drop of dirty water, we were shown 
by lime-light and a magnifying glass the other evening at 
the National School, projected on a white sheet. The 
whole room was crowded, and the bumpkins in the place 
sat gazing as the lecturer pointed to the wriggling creatures, 
named each in succession, and described it. What must 
have been the discomfort to those animals, if in any degree 
sensitive, to be exposed, stared at, glared through, com- 
mented on ! and — consider-«-the lecturer may have misin- 
terpreted them, because misunderstanding them, and they 
listened to it all, squirmed a little more painfully, but were 
incapable of setting him to rights. The German princes 
are entitled durch-laucht , that is, ‘ Transparencies ; ’ and 
quite right. We also are transparencies, we worms of the 
aristocracy, monsters of privilege, held up before the public 
eye, magnified, projected on newspaper sheets, characterised 
sometimes aright, more often wrongly, forced to have every 
nerve in our system, every pulsation in our blood, every motioa 
in our brains, every moment in our lives, and every writhe 
of our bodies and spasm of our hearts commented on by 
the vulgar, and brutally misunderstood. It is rather hard 
on us, Julia. There are other worms in the sour paste of 
life, other monsters in the drop of dirty water we call 
Society, who are at liberty to turn about, and stretch them- 
selves, bound or coil as they list ; only we — we must live 
and wriggle between two plates of glass, illuminated and 
made translucent by the most powerful known light, denied 
that privilege which belongs to the humble— opacity.” 


ARMINELL. 


125 


** Is it the injured pines that have put you out of spirits 
to-night, Lamerton ? ” asked my lady, stroking the hand 
she held. 

“ Did you ever read about Matthew Hopkins, the witch- 
finder?” asked his lordship, with a fluttering smile on his 
lips. “ He brought many poor harmless creatures to a 
violent end. Every suspected witch was stripped and 
closely examined for a mole, a wart, for any blemish, — and 
such blemishes were at once declared to be the devil’s seals, 
stamping the poor wretches as his own. Then they were 
tied hand and foot together, and thrown into the water ; if 
they sank they were pronounced innocent ; if they floated 
they were declared guilty and were withdrawn from the 
water to be delivered over to the fire. We, Julia, are 
treated in a way not unlike that pursued by Matthew 
Hopkins; and there are ten thousand amateur witch- 
finders searching us, tearing off our clothes, peering after 
defects, chucking us into the water or the fire. If we are 
found to have moles, how we are probed with lancets, and 
plucked with tweezers, and then we are cast to the flames 
of public indignation and democratic wrath. If, however, 
we are found to have no moles about us, if we give no 
occasion for scandal, then away we are pitched into the 
water, and down down we sink in public estimation, and 
chill disregard, as coroneted nonentities.” 

Lady Lamerton continued to caress her husband’s hand. 

“ Then again,” he continued, after a short silence, “ the 
witches were tortured into confession by sleeplessness. 
They were seated on uncomfortable stools, and watched 
night and day. If they nodded, their soles were tickled 
with feathers, cold water was poured down their backs, or 
pepper was blown up their noses. As for us, it is the same, 
we are not allowed to live quietly, we are forced to activity. 

I am kept running about, giving prizes at school com- 
memorations, taking seat on committees, laying foundation- 


126 


ARMINELL. 


stones, opening institutions, attending quarter sessions, 
throwing wide my doors to every one, my purse to a good 
many ; I am denied domesticity, denied rest. I am kept 
in perpetual motion. I have a title, that means every one 
else has a title to bully me. I am tickled into energy if 
I nod, or the pepper of journalistic sarcasm is blown into 
my eyes and nose to stir me to activity. Julia, a rich 
merchant, or banker, or manufacturer, a well-to-do trades- 
man lives more comfortably than do we. In the first place 
they can do what they will with their money — but we have 
to meet a thousand claims on what we get, and are grudged 
the remnant we reserve for our individual enjoyment. 
Next, they are not exposed to ruthless criticism, to daily, 
hourly comment, as we are. They are free, we are not ; 
they can think first of themselves, afterwards of others, 
whereas we have to be for ever considering others, and 
thrusting ourselves into corners, thankful to find a corner 
in which we may possess and stretch our individual selves. 
Upon my soul, I wish I had been born in another order of 
humanity, without title, and land, and a seat in rhe Upper 
House, and — and without manganese.” 

“ If it had been so — ” 

“ If it had been so, then I could have enjoyed life, 
stuck at home, and seen more of you, and Arminell, and 
dear little Giles, and then — why then, I would have had no 
enemies.” 

Lord Lamerton had reseated himself when he began to 
talk of Matthew Hopkins, the witch-finder. Now he stood 
up again. 

“Julia,” he said, “ those Douglas pines had made noble 
shoots — it is a pity. I shall go to bed, and dream, if I can, 
that I am lying in clover and not over a bunch of man- 
ganese.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


MR. JAMES WELSH. 

Mrs. Saltren had informed Arminell that she had a 
brother who was a gentleman. The term “gentleman is 
derived from the Latin gens, and signifies a member of a 
patrician family. But this is not the signification now given 
it in the vernacular. On the tongue of the people, a 
gentleman and a lady are those who do no manual labour. 
A man informs you that he will be a gentleman on a bank- 
holiday, because he will lounge about with his hands in his 
pockets, and an old woman who has weeded turnips at 
ninepence a day, becomes a lady when rheumatism invades 
her limbs, and sends her to the union. 

Mr. James Welsh, the brother of Mrs. Saltren, was a 
gentleman in this, that he belonged to a gens, a class not 
ancient or aristocratic, but modern, and one that has ob- 
tained considerable influence, wields much power and is 
likely to become dominant — we mean that of the profe ssional 
journalist and politician. He was a gentleman also in this, 
that he did no hard manual labour, but few men worked 
harder than he, but then he dirtied his hands with ink only. 

Along the coasts of Scotland and Sweden are terraces 
raised high above the sea-level, which are pronounced by 
geologists to be ancient beaches. At one time the waves 
washed where now sheep graze, and deposited sea- weed and 
shells where now grow heather and harebells. There are 
these raised sea-beaches in man, to which conscience at one 


128 


ARMINELL. 


time reached, where it formed a barrier, and whence it has 
retreated. But we are wrong in speaking of the retreat of 
the sea, for actually the level of the ocean is permanent, it 
is the land which rises, and as it rises leaves the sea below. 
And so perhaps it is with us. We lift ourselves above old 
convictions, scruples, principles, and the sometimes sleep- 
ing, sometimes tossing sea of conscience no longer touches 
those points they once fretted. Do we congratulate ourselves 
on this elevation ? Perhaps so, and yet few of us can con- 
template the raised beaches left in our hearts by the retiring 
waves of conscience without a sigh, and a doubt. 

Mr. James Welsh said and wrote and did many things as 
a public journalist and a professional politician which as a 
boy or young man he would have looked upon as dishonest, 
false, and mischievous. His conscience no longer troubled 
him in his business, but in home relations he was blameless. 

Perhaps one reason why the sea-level alters with us, is 
that we are always endeavouring to reclaim land from it, 
thrusting our sea-walls of self-interest further out, to take in 
more field from being overwashed. We make our line of 
conscience co-terminous with our line of self-interest. Out- 
side this line the waves may toss and roar, within they 
may not cast a flake of foam, or waft a breath of ozone. 
How much thunder and buffet we permit outside our sea- 
wall of self-interest against any rock or sand-bank that 
stands unenclosed ! but we only suffer the water of self- 
reproach to sweep with a shallow swash and soothing 
murmur the outside of the bank we have cast up. 

What excellent words those are to conjure with and 

wherewith blind our own eyes as well as those of others 

Political Party and the Public Weal ! We regard ourselves 
as devoted to the respublica , when, in reality, we care only 
for our private interests ; and our zeal for the public good 
is hot or cold according as our dividends are affected. 

If we can show that the welfare of our party can be 


ARMINELL. 


I29 


advanced by making out our neighbour to be a thief and 
assassin, with what pious energy do we set to work to in- 
vent lies to defame him. How we suppress and disguise 
facts which make against our pet doctrines ! To what 
subterfuges and tricks do we have recourse to colour those 
facts which cannot be suppressed to make them look the 
opposite to what we know them to be ! 

It is really deserving of note how every dirty and dis- 
honourable act is wrapped about with a moral sanction, as 
a comfit with a motto in a cracker. 

We always profess to be actuated by noble and dis- 
interested motives, and yet they are generally mean and 
personal. Our ancestors regarded the planets only so far 
as they by their conjunctions and interferences with each 
other’s houses affected the constitutions and careers of 
these ancestors of ours. Jupiter is 1250 times larger than 
the earth, and has seven moons, and this planet with its 
moons revolves and illumines the sky to affect the spleen of 
Master Jack Sparrow and disturb the courtship of Mistress. 
Jenny Wren. Jupiter is distant five hundred millions of 
miles from Jack and Jenny — but what of that? According 
to Euclid a straight line can be drawn between any two 
given points, accordingly between the planet at one end and 
these little nobodies at the other, lines exist. Now all 
people actually do draw invisible lines between themselves 
and every other object in heaven and earth, and contemplate 
these objects along these lines, and value and despise them 
according as these objects affect them along these lines. 

The author was travelling in a second-class railway- 
carriage on that memorable Monday morning aftei the 
Phoenix Park tragedy that thrilled all England with horror 
and rage. Facing him, sat a gentleman reading his paper, 
who ever and anon slapped his knee, and exclaimed, 
“Famous! Splendid! Nothing better could have happened!” 

Presently, unable to understand these exclamations, the 

1 


130 


ARMINELL. 


author asked, “ Sir ! do you mean to say that you approve 
of the crime ? ” 

“ Oh, no ! ” was his answer. “ Certainly not, but, consider 
how it will make the papers sell ! I have shares in one or 
two.” 

The writer was talking the other day to a timber merchant 
on the condition of Ireland. “ I trust,” said he, “ that the 
Plan of Campaign will not be suppressed as yet. We can 
buy Irish oak at fourpence a foot just now.” 

The writer was discussing the annexation of Alsace with 
a native farmer. “ Well,” said he, “ when we belonged to 
France I sold for a franc what I now sell for a mark, there- 
x fore , God save Kaiser Wilhelm.” “ But,” was objected, 
“probably you now have to pay a mark for what formerly 
cost you a franc.” He considered for a moment, and then 
said, “That is true, vive la France!” Twopence turned 
his patriotism this way to Berlin, or that way to Paris. He 
was a German when selling, a Frenchman when buying, all 
for twopence. 

The professional politician is a man who lives by politics 
as the professional chess-player lives by chess. He acquires 
a professional conscience. His profession has to fill his 
pockets and find bread for his children, and politics must 
be kept going to do so. The chess-player sacrifices pawns 
to gain his end. The stoker shovels on coals into the 
furnace to make his engine gallop ; and the electrician pours 
vitriol into the battery to produce a current in his wires. 
They have none of them the slightest scruple in doing these 
things — they belong to the business, and the professional 
politician has no scruple in playing with facts, and throwing 
them away as pawns in his game, or of exciting the passions 
and prejudices of men, or of using the most biting and 
corroding acid in his endeavours to evoke a current of 
feeling. When an organist desires to produce a noise, he pulls 
out stop diapason, and dances on the pedals. The pro* 


ARMINELL. 


131 

fessional politician deals with the public in the same way ; 
that is his instrument. What in the organ are the pedals 
for but to be kicked, and the keys but to be struck, and the 
stops but to be drawn out, and what are the social classes 
but the manuals, and the individuals composing them, but 
the keys, and the grudges, greed, ambition, envy, and pre- 
judices but the stops, which a clever player understands to 
manipulate ? 

Mr. Welsh was a worthy man, eminently respectable, a 
good husband, and a kind friend. He was truthful, honest, 
reliable in his family and social relations, but professionally 
unscrupulous. The sea-line stood in its old place on one 
side of his character, but on another a wide tract, that tract 
on which he grew his harvest, had been reclaimed from the 
waves of conscience. It is so with a good many others 
besides Mr. Welsh, and in a good many other trades and 
professions than journalism and politics. We are con- 
scientious in every department except that of money making, 
and in that we allow of tricks and meannesses, which we 
excuse to ourselves as forced on us by the exigencies of 
competition. Recently Mr. Welsh had been slightly in- 
disposed, so he came from town into the country, on a 
holiday, to spend the Sunday with his sister, and then run 
on to see a congenial friend in a town in the same 
county. 

In the afternoon he took a stroll by himself in the woods, 
smoking his pipe, and always with an eye to business, look- 
ing about him for material for an article. 

“ Halloo ! ” said Mr. Welsh, halting in front of the ruinous 
cottage of Patience Kite. “What have we here? Does 
any one inhabit this tumble-down concern ? ” 

He went to the door and looked in. 

Patience faced him. 

“What do you want ? Who are you ? This is my house, 
and I will not be turned out of it.” 


12,2 


ARMlNELL. 


She took him for a sanitary officer, or a lawyer, come to 
enforce her expulsion. 

“This is a queer hole for a lady to occupy as her 
boudoir,” said Mr. Welsh, taking his pipe' out of his mouth. 
“ I wouldn’t care for this style of thing myself except as a 
drawing copy. Not to become a hero of romance, or to give 
my experience in a magazine article would I sleep under 
that chimney on a stormy night.” 

“Nobody has invited you,” said Patience, blocking her 
door. 

“ And pray, madam, whose house is this ? Is this the 
sort of cottage my lord provides for his tenants?” 

“ The house is mine.” 

“ Copyhold or freehold ? ” 

“ I pay ground rent for it of two shillings ; it is mine for 
life, and then it falls to his lordship.” 

“ I should expect it would fall altogether to you shortly. 
Why don’t you do it up ? ” 

“ How can I ? I am poor.” 

“ I suppose that you are bound by the terms of the lease 
to maintain the house in repair ? ” 

“ I dare say. The agent, Mr. Macduff, has threatened 
me ; but no one can make me do it when 1 haven’t a shill- 
ing. You can’t make one dance who is born without legs.” 

“ Then, properly, this house belongs to his lordship. Why 
does not he do it up? I can make something out ofithis ! 
A Day in the Country, something to fill a column and a- 
half in a Monday morning paper. Contrast his lordship’s 
princely residence with the ruins in which he pigs his 
tenants. Compare Saltren’s place, Chillacot, which is his 
own, all in spic-and-span order, with this, and then a word 
about the incubus of the great holders on the land, and the 
advantage of the enfranchisement of the soil. It will do. 
And so, madam, they have tried to evict you ? ” 

“ Yes ; the sanitary officer ordered me to- leave ; the 


ARMINELL. 


133 


Board of Guardians went to the magistrates, and issued 
a summons to me to quit, and my lord has sent Mr Macduff 
to me, to threaten.proceedings against me if I will not put 
the house in repair or quit it. But what can they do when 
I won’t budge, and could prosecute ’em if they laid fingers 
on me? The police daren’t touch me. They’ve come and 
looked at me and argued, but they can’t force me to leave.” 

“So his lordship wants to evict you, eh?” 

“ Mr. Macduff has declared he’ll send masons and 
strip the roof, and pull down the chimney, and rebuild the 
walls, but they can’t do it without driving me out first, and 
that is more than they can with me having the house as my 
own for life.” 

“ By Jove ! ” exclaimed Welsh, “ it’s a case — a poor widow, 
I suppose you are a widow ; it doesn’t matter if you are not ; 
it sounds best — a widow, a victim to his lordship’s tyranny 
— tearing down the roof that shelters her grey head, casting 
down her chimney, desecrating her hearthstone, the sacred 
penates, with the foot of violence — or hoof, which shall it 
be ? By George ! I’ll make something out of it, harrowing 
to the feelings, and as rousing as tartaric acid and soda! 
Who cares for a contradiction or a correction ? We can 
always break the lines and make nonsense of it, and lay the 
blame on the printer, if called to task. I’m glad I came 
here for a Sunday. You will let me inside, I suppose, ma’am, 
to cast an eye round ; particulars are so useful in a descrip- 
tion, lend such a vraisemblance to an account.” 

But Mrs. Kite’s tumble-down cottage was not the only 
material Mr. Welsh collected for use on that Sunday. He 
heard from Saltren about the stoppage of the manganese. 

“Something can be made out of that,” said Welsh. 
“We are in want of a grievance. Tell me the parti- 
culars, I’ll sift out for myself what will serve my purpose.” 

When he had heard all, “ It will do,” said he, “ there has 
been nothing to interest the public or stir them up since 


134 


ARM IN ELL. 


the last divorce suit in high life. High life ! — so high that 
some folks had to hold their noses. We want a bit of a 
change now. After that bit of strong venison, some cap- 
sicum to restore the palate. Saltren, you must convene a 
public meeting, make a demonstration, a torchlight proces 
sion of the out-of-work, issue a remonstrance. I’ll come 
and help you. I know how to work those kind of things. 
A little grievance and some dissatisfaction well-stirred to- 
gether is like clTlorate of potash and sulphur in a mortar ; 
only stir away, and in the end you get an explosion.” 

“ It is of no use,” said the captain, in a tone of dis- 
couragement. 

“ Of no use ! I tell you it is of the utmost use ; we’ll 
make a public matter of it. Get a question asked in the 
House about it. There are j o many journalists in there 
now that we can get anything asked when we want the 
question as a text for a leader. Why, we will fill the papers 
with your grievance, only we must have some meeting to 
report, and I’ll help you with that. Bless you, I’ve half a 
dozen ways of poking this matter into notoriety ; and we 
will show up the British aristocracy as the oppressors of 
the poor, those who are driving business out of the country, 
who are the true cause of the prevailing depression. 
Thanks to that recent divorce case we’ve made them out 
to be the moral cancer in the body of old England, and 
now we shall show that they are the drag on commercial 
progress. When folks are grumbling because the times are 
bad, it makes them mighty content to be shown a cause for 
it all, on which they may vent their ill-humour. Did you 
ever read ‘The Curiosity Shop,’ Saltren? Quilp had a 
figure-head to batter whenever things went wrong with him, 
and the public are much like Quilp ; give ’em an admiral 
or a peer, or an archbishop, some figure-head, and whack, 
bang, hammer, and smash they go at it.” 

“ As for the aristocracy,” said Mrs. Saltren, “ I ought to 


ARMINELL. 


135 


know them. I combed their hair, and hooked their dresses, 
and unpacked their portmanteaus ; and them as do that 
are best qualified to know them, I should think.” 

“ I don’t mind telling you,” said the captain, addressing 
his brother-in-law, “ that their doom is sealed in heaven. 
I’ve had it revealed to me.” 

“You have, have you ? ” asked Welsh in a tone of irony, 
which, however, Saltren did not perceive. 

“Yes, I haver— you shall hear. I would not tell every 
one, but I tell you. I was in the spirit this very morning, 
and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Saltren, 
Saltren ! Then I looked, and behold there came flying 
down to me, a book from heaven, written within and with- 
out. I held up my hands to receive it ; but it fell past me 
into the water, and I stooped and looked thereon, and saw 
written ‘ The Gilded Clique,’ and again the voice cried, ‘ It 
is fallen, it is fallen ! ’ ” 

“ You don’t expect me to gulp that ’’Welsh checked 

himself, and added, shaking his head — “ I can’t, I’m afraid, 
make copy of that.” 

“ It is true,” said Saltren earnestly. His vehemence, his 
kindled eyes, his deepened colour, showed his sincerity. 
“ Would 1 dare in such matters to utter lies ? I am but a 
poor mean instrument, but what of that ? Prophets have 
been found among shepherds, and apostles taken from 
their fishing nets. I was engaged in heartfelt prayer when 
this took place.” 

“You didn’t happen to fall asleep whilst occupied in 
devotion, of course ? ” said Welsh, with a contemptuous jerk 
of the chin. “ Such a weakness is not likely to befall you.” 

“I was not asleep,” answered Saltren sternly. “How 
could I be asleep, when my eyes were open, and I saw the 
book ; and my ears, and they heard the voice? ” 

“ You didn’t happen to get hold of the book, and see 
the name of the publisher ? ” 


136 


ARMINELL. 


“ No — I was unable. It was unnecessary. I read the 
title plainly. I saw what was on the cover of the book.” 

“ I can do nothing with this,” said Welsh, leaning back 
in his chair, stretching, and closing his hands behind the 
back of his head. “ This belongs to another department 
altogether. You had better relate your experiences at the 
next revival-meeting among the horse-marines, there is no 
knowing what effect it may have upon that intelligent and 
excitable body of men.” 

“ It is true,” urged Saltren again, frowning. 

He was incapable of seeing that his brother-in-law was 
bantering him. The man was absolutely without sense of 
humour ; but he saw that Welsh did not believe in his 
story, and this irritated and offended him. That his tale 
as he told it, grew in its proportions and became more and 
more unreal, was also what he did not know. His mind 
worked on the small materials it had, and spun out of 
them a fable in which he himself implicitly believed. 

“ I don’t dispute what you have narrated,” said Welsh 
composedly. “ 1 know you are a total abstainer, so it is 
not to be accounted for in the way which comes naturally 
uppermost. Still, I’ve heard of wonderful elevation of 
spirits and general head-over-heeledness after an over-dose 
of non-alcoholic effervescing liquors.” 

“ I had touched nothing,” said Saltren, with his temper 
chafed. “ If you doubt me ” 

“ But I do not doubt you,” interrupted Welsh. “ I tell 
you that this does not interest me, because it is outside my 
department, like Bulgaria, and the Opera Comique, and 
Inoculations for Hydrophobia, and Primitive Marriage. I 
don’t meddle w'ith the Eastern Question, or review histori- 
cal works, or sermons, or novels. I leave all that to other 
fellows ; you must pass this on to the chap who does re- 
ligion, not that I think he would make copy out of it for a 
magazine article, except under the head of Hallucinations.” 


CHAPTER XV. 


REVELATIONS. 

“Now look straight for’ard,” said Mr. Welsh, “and distin- 
guish. Y ou call this affair of yours and the book — a revela- 
tion. There are revelations, my friend, that may be written 
with a capital R, and others that have to begin with a small 
cap.” 

Mr. Welsh was not particular about the English he spoke, 
but he wrote it well, at least passably. 

“ The sort of revelation that suits me, one with a capital 
R, is that at which a shorthand reporter assists. That’s the 
sort of revelation we get in the courts — that is, as the 
French say, controle. But on the other hand comes your 
hole-and-corner revelation, which has more given it than is 
its due when written with a little r. No reporter, no 
public present, totally uncontrolled ; that sort of revelation 
is no use to me. I don’t mean to say but that sort of 
thing may go down at revivals, but for the press it is no 
good at all.” 

“ Am I likely to have imagined it ? What should have 
put the thought of ‘ The Gilded Clique ’ into my head ? ” 
asked Saltren angrily. “ I tell you I believe in this revela- 
tion as I believe that I see you before me.” 

“ Gilded Clique ! ” repeated Welsh, “ I can’t say, but 
Gaboriau’s criminal novel may have fallen under your eyes.” 

“ What is that ? ” 

“ A French novel with that title. It has been translated.” 


138 ’ AEMINELL. 

“Now see ! ” exclaimed Captain Saltren, kindling, spring- 
ing up, and waving his arms, “ I never have set eyes on 
such a book, never heard of it before. But nothing that 
you could have said would have confirmed me in my con- 
viction more than this. It shows that the devil is active, 
and that to draw away attention from, and to weaken the 
force of my revelation, he has caused a book to be circulated 
under the same name. I should not be surprised if you 
.told me it had a blood-red cover.” 

“ It has one.” 

“There!” cried Saltren, “ now nothing will ever shake 
my faith. When the devil strives to defeat the purposes of 
Heaven, it is because he fears those purposes. My solemn 

and sincere convicticfn is ” He lowered his voice, but 

though low it shook with emotion. “ My belief is that the 
book I saw was the Everlasting Gospel. John saw an angel 
flying in heaven having that book in his right hand, but it 
was not then communicated to man. The time was not 
ripe. Now, at last, towards the end of the ages, that book 
has been cast down, and its purport disclosed.” 

“ You didn’t happen to see the angel ? ” asked Welsh 
sneeringly. 

“I — I am not sure,' I saw something. Indeed, there no 
doubt was an angel flying, but my eyes were blinded with 
the extraordinary light, and my mind has not yet sufficiently 
recovered for me to recollect all the particulars of the vision. 
But this I can tell you, for 1 know it. Although I did not 
get hold of the book, its contents are written in fire in my 
brain. That book of the Everlasting Gospel declares that 
the age of privilege is at an end, the distinctions between 
rich and poor, noble and common, are at an end. This has 
been hidden from the world, because the world was not 
ready to receive it. Now the time is come, and I am the 
humble instrument chosen for announcing these good tidings 
to men. I care not if, like Samson, I be crushed as I take 


ARMINELL. 


139 


% 

hold of the pillars, and bow myself, and bring the House of 
Lords down.” 

“ Well,” said Welsh, “ if you can work that line in the 
chapel, well and good. I keep to my province, and that is 
the manganese. Why, Condy’s fluid, I fancy, is perman- 
ganate of potash — I can lug that in somehow.” 

“ Ah ! ” said Mrs. Saltren, who was becoming impatient 
at having been left out of the conversation, “ at the park 
they thought a deal about Condy’s fluid.” 

“ I can manage it in this way,” said her brother, rubbing 
his hands. “ That disinfectant has manganese as a con- 
stituent. His lordship, by stopping the manganese mine, 
cuts off a source of health, a deodorising and disinfecting 
stream from entering the homes of sickness, and the haunts 
of fever. Who can say how many lives may be sacrificed 
by the stopping of Wheal Julia ? I’ll bring in Condy’s fluid 
with effect. What else is manganese used for ? ” 

“ Bleaching, I believe,” said Mrs. Saltren. 

“ Ah ! ” said Mr. Welsh, “ that can be worked in also, 
and I’ll pull old Isabelle of Castile in by the ears as well. 
She vowed she would not change her smock till a 
certain city she was besieging had capitulated, and as that 
city held out three months, judge the colour of her linen. 
We are all, I presume, to wear Isabelle shirts — or rather 
cuffs and collars — and use Isabelle sheets and towels, and 
eat off Isabelle tablecloths, and the ministers of the Estab- 
lished Church to preach in Isabelle surplices, because, for 
sooth, the supply of manganese is withheld wherewith to 
whiten them.” 

“ Well, it does seem wrong,” said Mrs. Saltren. 

“ And then,” continued her brother, kindling with profes- 
sional enthusiasm, “ after that divorce case, too, when the 
noble lords and "ladies washed their dirty linen in public. 
You can figure how it will all work out. Here is my Lord 
Lamerton knows that ihe titled aristocracy have so much 


140 


ARMINELL. 


dirty linen at home, that he is determined to prevent the 
British public from wearing bleached linen at all, lest they 
should perceive the difference. There is nothing,” con- 
tinued Welsh, with a chuckle,' “ nothing so convenient for 
one’s purpose as well mixing one’s hyperboles and analogies, 
and drawing just any conclusions you like out of premises 
well muddled up with similitudes. We know very well, my 
dear Marianne, that the bread we buy of the bakers is com- 
posed of some flour, and some alum, and some plaster-of- 
paris, and some china-clay, but we don’t stop to analyse it 
at our breakfast; we cut ourselves a slice, butter it, and pop 
it into our mouths, and like it a thousand times better than 
home-made bread made of pure, unadulterated flour. It is 
just the same with political articles and political speeches. 
There’s a lot of stuff of all sorts goes into them besides the 
flour of pure reason. And the British public don’t analyse, 
they swallow. What they consume they expect to be light 
and to taste agreeably — they don’t care a farthing what it is 
made up of.” 

Mr. Welsh took out his pocket-book, and dotted down 
his ideas. “ Of course,” said he, talking and laughing to 
himself, “we must touch this off with a light hand in a 
semi-jocose, and semi-serious manner. There are some 
folks who never see a joke, or rather they always see it as 
something grave. They are like earth-worms — all swallow.” 

Mr. Welsh put up his knee, interlaced his fingers round 
it, and began to swing his knee on a level with his chest. 

“ If you want to rouse the British public,” he said, “you 
must tickle them. You can’t do much with their heads, 
but their feelings are easily roused. Heads ! — why there 
was no getting wisdom out of the head of Jupiter, till it was 
clove with an axe, and you would not have the skull of the 
British public more yielding than that of the king of the 
gods.” He put down his leg that he had been hugging 
“ My dear sister,” he went on, “ I know the British public, 


ARMINELL. 


I4T 

it is my business to study it and treat it. I know its moods, 
and it is one of the most docile of creatures to drive. 
There is one thing it loves above anything, and that is a 
sore. Do you remember how Aunt Susan had a bad leg, 
and how she went on about that leg, the pride she took in 
it, the medicines she swallowed for it, and how she hated 
.Betsy Tucker because she also had a bad leg, and how she 
contended that hers was the worst, the most inflamed, and 
caused her most pain ? It is so with the public. It must 
have its sore ; and show it, and discuss it, and apply to it 
quack plasters, and drink for it quack draughts. What would 
the doctors do but for the Aunt Susans and Betsy Tuckers 
— their fortunes stand on these old women’s legs. So is it 
with us — we live by the bad legs of the nation. The public, 
in its heart of hearts, don’t want those precious legs to be 
healed — certainly not to be taken off. What we have to do 
is to keep the sores angry with caustic, and poked with 
needles. And that is just why I want this manganese now, 
to rub it into the legs of the public and wake the sores up 
into irritation once more.” 

Then Welsh began to whistle between his front teeth and 
swing his foot again. 

“The public,” he continued, “are like Job on a dunghill, 
rubbing its sores. The public has no desire to have the 
dunghill removed; it rather likes the warmth. When it 
nods off into a nap then we stick the prongs of the fork 
into it, and up it starts excited and angry, and we turn the 
heap over under its nose, and then it settles down into it 
again deeper than before.” 

“ I confess I do not know much about the public,” said 
Mrs Saltren, resolved to have a word; “but when you come 
to the aristocracy, why then you are on my ground.” 

“ On your ground,” laughed Welsh, “ because you were 
lady’s maid at the Park; that is like the land surveyor claiming 
a property because he has walked over it with a chain.” 


142 


ARMINELL. 


u At all events the surveyor knows it,” said 
Saltren, with some spirit, “ perhaps better than does thf 
owner.” 

“ 1 admit that you have me there,” laughed her brother. 

“ And,” said Mrs. Saltren, “ it is pounds on pounds I 
might have earned by sending information about high life 
to the society papers ; but I was above doing that sort of 
thing ; besides, the society papers were not published at 
that time. Sometimes there were as many as a dozen or 
fourteen lady’s-maids and as many valets staying in the 
house with their masters and mistresses, and they were full 
of the most interesting information and bursting to reveal 
it, like moist sugar in a paper-bag.” 

“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Welsh, “ servantdom is 
becoming a power in the country, just as the press has 
become. There is no knowing nowadays where to look foi 
the seat of power ; it is at the other extremity from the head. 
In old times the serfs and slaves were not of account at all. 
and now their direct representatives hold the characters and 
happiness of the best in the land in their hands. The 
country .may have at one time been directed by its head ; 
it is not so now, like a fish, it is directed and propelled by 
its tail. The servant class at one time was despised, now 
it is feared ; it mounts on its two wings, the divorce court 
and the society press. What opportunities it now has of 
paying off old grudges, of pushing itself into notoriety, of 
earning a little money. This is the age of the utilisation of 
refuse. We find an employment for what our forefathers, 
nay, our fathers, cast aside. The rummage of copper mines 
is now burnt for arsenic, the scum of coal-tar makes aniline 
dyes, and I hear they are talking of the conversion of dirty 
rags by means of vitriol into lump sugar. It is so in social 
and political life — we are using up our refuse, we invest it 
with preponderating political influence, we chuck it into the 
House of Commons, and right it should be so ; give every- 


ARMINELL. 


J 43 


thing a chance, and in an age of transformation we must 
turn up our social deposits. If it were not so, life would be 
a donkey-race with the prize for the last.” 

“ When I was companion to her ladyship,” began Mrs. 
Saltren, but was cut short by her brother — 

“ I beg your pardon, Marianne, when was that ? I only 
knew you as lady’s maid.” 

“ I was more than that,” said Mrs. Saltren flushing. 

“ Oh, of course, lady without the maid.” 

“ I might, I daresay, have been my lady, and have kept 
my maid,” said Mrs. Saltren, tossing her head, “ so there 
is no point in your sneers, James. You may be a gentle- 
man, but I am a captain’s wife, and might have been more.” 

“ Oh, indeed, and how came you not to be more ? ” 

“ Because I did not choose.” 

“ In fact,” said Welsh, “ you thought you were in for a 
donkey-race. By George, you have got the prize ! ” ♦ 

“ You are really too bad,” exclaimed Mrs. Saltren, vexed 
and angry; “I could tell you things that would surprise 
you. You think nothing of me because I am not rich or 
grand, and have to do the house work in my home ; but I 
have been much considered in my day, and admired, and 
sought. And I have had my wrongs, which I thought to 
have carried with me to my grave, but as you choose to 
insult me, your sister, with saying I came in last at a 
donkey-race, I will tell you that properly I ought to have 
come in first.” 

“ And I,” said Saltren, standing up, “ I insist on your 
speaking out.” He had remained silent for some time, 
offended at his brother-in-law’s incredulity, and not particu- 
larly interested in what he was saying, which seemed to him 
trifling. 

“ Let us hear,” said Welsh, with a curl of his lips. He 
had no great respect for his sister. “ You must let me 
observe in passing that just now you did not come in first 


144 


ARMINELL. 


because you wouldn’t, and now, apparently, it is because 
you weren’t allowed.” 

“ I have no wish,” said Marianne Welsh, not noticing the 
sneer, “ to make mischief, but truth is truth.” 

“Truth,” interposed Welsh, who had the family infirmity 
of loving to hear his own voice, “ truth when naked is 
unpresentable. The public are squeamish, and turn aside 
from it as improper ; here we step in and frizzle, paint and 
clothe her, and so introduce her to the public.” 

“ If you interrupt me, how am I to go on ?”• asked Mrs. 
Saltren, testily. “ I was going to say, when you interrupted 
with your coarse remarks, that at one time I was a great 
beauty, and I don’t suppose I’ve quite lost my' good looks 
yet ; and I was then very much sought.” 

“ And what is more,” said Welsh, “to the best of my re- 
membrance you were not like a slug in a- flower-bed, that 
when-sought digs under ground.” 

“I tell you,” continued Mrs. Saltren, with heightened 
colour, “ that I have been sought by some of the noblest in 
the land.” 

Welsh looked out of the corners of his eyes at his sister, 
and said nothing. 

“ I was cruelly deceived. A great nobleman whom I will 
not name — ” 

“ Whose title is in abeyance,” threw .in Welsh. 

“ Whom I will not name, but might do so if I chose, 
obtained a licence for a private marriage, and a minister to 
perform the ceremony, and there were witnesses — the 
nuptials ’took place. Not till several days after did I dis- 
cover that I had been basely deceived. The licence was 
forged, the minister was a friend of the bridegroom disguised 
as a parson, and not in holy orders, and the witnesses were 
sworn to secrecy.” 

“That is your revelation, is it?” asked Jame* Welsh. 
“ I write it with a small cap, and in pica print.” 


ARMINELL. 


145 


“ It is truth.* 

“ The truth dressed, of course, and not in tailor-made 
clothes. I dress the truth myself, but — let me see, never 
allow of so much margin for improvers.” 

Then Welsh stood up. 

“ I must be off, Marianne, if I am to catch the train. 
Saltren, keep the manganese in agitation ; I will be with yon 
and set your meeting going. Marianne, I can make no 
more of your revelation than I can of that disclosed by your 
husband. Facts, my dear sister, in my business are like the 
wax figures in Mrs. Jarley’s show. They are to be dressed 
in the livery of our political colours, and it is wonderful 
what service they will do thus ; but, Marianne, you can’t 
make the livery stand by itself, there must be facts under- 
neath, it matters not of what a wooden and skeleton nature, 
they hold up the garments. I can’t say that I see in what 
you have told me any supporting facts at all, only a bund T< i 
of tumbled, theatrical, romantic rubbish*” 


CHAPTER XVI. 


HOW SALTREN TOOK IT. 

Mrs. Saltren, as already said, as Marianne Welsh, had 
been good-looking and vain, when lady’s-maid to the 
dowager Lady Lamerton, the mother of the present lord. 
She had never been in the Park with Arminell’s mother, as 
she had pretended. She had been lady’s-maid only to the 
dowager, and had left her precipitately and married Saltren 
a year before the marriage of my lord. She had been vain, 
and thought much of ; her good looks were gone, her vanity 
had not departed with them. Her vanity had been wounded 
by the loss of her husband’s esteem. She had harboured 
anger against him for many years because of his fantastic 
ideas, and straight-laced morality. No one is perfect, she 
argued, and Saltren, who pinned his religion on the Bible, 
ouyht to have been the first to admit this. The just man 
falleth seven times a day, and she had tripped only once in 
forty-two years — over fifteen thousand days. If she could 
but raise the veil and look into her husband’s past life, 
argued she, no doubt she would see comical things there. 
What if she had tripped ? Were not the ways of the world 
slippery ? Did she make them slippery ? Had she created 
the world and set it all over with slides ? And if a person 
did slip, was it becoming of such a person to lie whimpering 
where she had fallen ? Did not that show lack of spirit ? 
For her part, after that slight lapse, she had hopped on her 
feet, shaken her skirts, and warbled a tune. 


ARMINELL. 


147 


It is a fact patent to .every one, that the further we recede 
from an object, the smaller it appears. For instance, the 
dome of St. Paul’s when we stand in St. Paul’s Churchyard, 
looks immense. But as we stand on Paul’s Wharf, waiting 
for a steamer, we always discover that the small intervening 
distance has diminished the dome to the size of a dish-cover. 
As we descend the river, the cupola decreases in proportion 
as we widen our distance from it, till it is reduced to an in- 
considerable speck, and finally sinks beyond the range of 
our vision. It is precisely the same with our faults. At 
the moment of their commission, from under their shadow, 
they look portentous and actually oppress us ; but they be- 
come sensibly reduced in bulk the farther we drift down 
life’s stream from them. What immeasurably weighed on 
us yesterday, measurably burden us to-day, and to-morrow 
are perceptible ; but the day after cease to discomfort us. 
Not so only, but as we draw further from our past fault, we 
look back on it with a sort of fond admiration, tinged with 
sadness ; we lounge over the bulwarks of our boat, opera- 
glass in hand, and consider it as we consider the dome of 
St. Paul’s, as an adjunct not altogether regrettable in the 
retrospect ; for, consider how uniform, how insufferable 
would be the landscape, without breaks in the sky line. 

Now Mrs. Saltren was embarked on the same voyage with 
Stephen, her husband, and naturally expected that the same 
object which at one moment had obscured their sun, but 
which rapidly diminished in size and importance and 
signification to her eyes, should equally tend to disappear 
from his. When, however, she found that it did not, she 
was offended, and harboured the conviction that she was 
herself the injured party. Why were not Stephen’s eyes 
constituted as the eyes of other men ? She had good 
occasion to take umbrage at the perversity of his visio n 
She had admitted at one time, faintly, and with a graceful 
curtsey, a pretty apology, and with that re'uctance which a 


I4S 


ARMINELL. 


woman has to confess a fault, that her husband had been an 
injured man ; but now, after the lapse of over twenty years, 
their relative positions were reversed. The cases are known 
of girls who have swallowed packets of needles. These 
needles inside have caused at first uneasiness and alarm for 
the consequences ; but when they gradually, and in succes- 
sion, work out, some at the elbows, some at the finger ends, 
some at the nose, and in the end come all away, they cease 
to trouble, and become a joke. It is so with our moral 
transgressions. When committed, they plunge us in an 
agony of remorse and fear; but gradually they work out of 
us, point or head foremost, and finally we get rid of them 
altogether. Now Marianne Welsh and Stephen Saltren had 
swallowed a packet of needles between them, and they were 
all her needles which had entered him. She did not retain 
hers long, but as they worked out of her, they worked into 
him and transfixed his heart, which bristled with them, like 
a christening pin-cushion. This, of course, was particularly 
annoying to her. To forgive and to forget is a Christian 
virtue, and Saltren, she argued, was no better than a. heathen, 
for all his profession, because he neither forgot nor for- 
gave. 

When Mrs. Saltren made the announcement to her 
brother and husband, that a cruel fraud had been committed 
on her, she had acted without premeditation, stung to the 
confession by her galled vanity at her brother’s disrespectful 
tone, and with an indefined, immatured desiue of setting 
herself to rights with her husband. 

The story had been contemptuously cast back in her 
face by James Welsh ; and it was with some surprise and 
much satisfaction, that she saw her husband ready to accept 
it without question. Captain Saltren had not offered to 
accompany his brother-in-law to the station, which was four 
miles distant ; he could hardly wait with patience * his 
departure. No sooner was Welsh gone, than Saltren 


ARMINELL. 149 

grasped his wife’s arm, and said in his deepest tones, “ Tell 
me all, Marianne, tell me all ! ” 

“ I ought,” said Mrs. Saltren, recovering herself from the 
confusion which she felt, when her brother ridiculed her 
story, “I ought at this day to wear a coronet of diamonds. 
I was loved by a distinguished nobleman, with ardour. I 
cannot say I loved him equally ; but I was dazzled. His 
family naturally were strenuously opposed to our union ; 
but, indeed, they knew nothing at all about it. He 
entreated me to consent to have our union celebrated in 
private. He undertook to obtain a special licence from the 
Archbishop. How was I to know that my simplicity was 
being imposed upon ? I was an innocent, confiding girl, 
ignorant of the world’s deceit ; and extraordinarily good- 
looking.” 

“ And you did not reckon on the wickedness of the 
aristocracy. Go on.” 

But Marianne paused. She was not ready to fill up the 
details, and to complete her narrative without considera- 
tion. 

“ Do not keep me in torture ! ” protested Saltren ; his 
face was twitching convulsively. 

“How could I help myself?” asked Marianne. “It 
was not my fault that I had such an exquisite complexion, 
such abundant, beautiful hair, and such lovely eyes; though, 
heaven knows, little did I know it then, or have I thought 
of, or valued it since. My beauty is, to some extent, gone 
now, but not altogether. As for my teeth, Stephen, which 
were pearls — I had not a decayed one in my jaws then ; but 
after I married you they began to go with worry, and be- 
cause you did not trust me, and were unkind to me ! ” 

“ Marianne,” said Saltren, “ you deceived me — you 
deceived me cruelly. You told me nothing of this when I 
married you.” 

“ I was always a woman of delicacy, and it was not for 


ARMINELL. 


150 

me to speak. I had been deceived and was deserted. 
Only when too late did I find how wickedly I had been be- 
trayed, and then, when you came by and found me in my 
sorrow and desolation, I clung to your hand ; I hoped you 

would be my consolation, my stay, my solace, and I — I ” 

She burst into tears. “ I have been bitterly disappointed. 
I have found you without love, churlish, sullen, holding me 
from you as if I were infected with the plague, not ready to 
clasp me as an unhappy, suffering woman, that needed all 
the love and pity you could give.” 

“Not one word did you tell me of all this. You let me 
marry you in unsuspicion that before you had loved 
another.” 

“ Not at all, Stephen,” she said, “ I have already assured 
you that I did not love the man whom I so foolishly and 
unfortunately trusted.” 

“ Why have you not told me this story long ago ? Why 
have you left me in the dark so long ? ” 

“ Your own fault, Stephen, none but yours. If you had 
shown me that consideration which becomes a professing 
Christian, I might have been encouraged to open my poor, 
tired, fluttering heart to you ; but I was always a woman of 
extreme delicacy, and very reserved. You, however, were 
distant, and cold, and jealous. Then my pride bade me 
keep my tragic story to myself.” 

Saltren stood before her with folded arms, his hands 
were working. He could not keep them still but by clasp- 
ing them to his side. “ I was just, Marianne ! ” he said. 
“Just, and not severe to judge. I judged but as I knew 
the facts. If I was told nothing, I knew nothing to ex- 
tenuate your fault. You were young and beautiful, and I 
thought that perhaps you had not strong principles to guide 
you. Now that you have told me all, I allow that you 
were more sinned against than sinning ; but I cannot acquit 
you of not entrusting me before this with the whole truth.” 


ARMINELL. 


* 5 * 

“ You never asked me for it.” 

“ No,” he answered sternly. “ I could not do that. It 
was for you to have spoken ” 

Then, all at once, Saltren began to tremble ; he took 
hold of the window-jamb, and he shook so that the diamond 
panes in the casement rattled. He stood there quivering 
in all his limbs. Great drops formed and rolled off his 
tall forehead, hung a moment suspended on his shaggy 1 row 
and then fell to the ground. They were not tears, they 
were the anguish drops expressed from his brain. 

Mrs. Saltren looked at him with astonishment and some 
trepidation. She never had comprehended him. She 
could not understand what was going on in him now. 

“What is it, Stephen?” 

He waved his hand. He could not speak. 

“ But, Stephen, what is it ? Are you ill ? ” 

Then he threw himself before her, and clasped her to 
him furiously, with a cry and a sob, and broke into a convul- 
sion of loud weeping. He kissed her forehead, hair, and 
lips. He seized her hands, and covered them at once with 
tears and kisses. 

“ Marianne ! ” he said at last, with a voice interrupted 
and choked. “For all these years we have been divided, 
you and I, I and you, under one roof, and yet with the 
whole world between us. I never loved any but you — 
never, never any ; and all these long years there has been 
my old love deep in my heart, not dead, but sleeping ; and 
now and then putting up its hands and uttering a cry, and 
I have bid it go to sleep again and lie still, and never hoped 
that the trumpet would sound, and it would spring up to 
life once more. But why did y^u not tell me this before ? 
Why did you hide from me that you were the sufferer, you 
the wronged? If you would have told me this, I would . 
have forgiven you long ago. My heart has been hungering 
and crying out for love. I have seen you every day, and 


152 


ARMINELL. 


felt that I have loved you, felt it in every vein. To me you 
have not grown old, but have remained the same, only there 
was this shadow of a great darkness between us. I con- 
strained myself, because I considered you had sinned against 
God and me, and were unworthy of being loved ! ” 

Again he drew her head to his shoulder, laid it there, and 
kissed her, and sobbed, and clasped her passionately. 

“ Marianne ! Let him that is without guilt cast the first 
stone. I forgive you. Tell me that you loved me when I 
came to you asking you to be mine.” 

“ I did love you, Stephen — you and you only.” 

“ And that other ; he who — ” he did not finish the sen- 
tence — a fresh fit of trembling came on him. 

“I never did love him, Stephen. Only his title and his 
position impressed me. I was young, and he was so much 
my superior in age, in rank, in strength ; and the prospect 
opened before me was so splendid, that a poor, young, 
trustful, foolish thing like me — ” 

“You did not love him?” Stephen spoke with eager- 
ness. 

“ I have assured you that I never did.” 

“ Oh the age that we have spent together under one roof, 
united yet separated ; one in name, apart in soul ; years of 
sorrow to both of us ; years of estrangement ; years of dis- 
appointed love, and broken trust, and embittered home — 
all this we owe to him ! ” 

Marianne felt his heart beating furiously, and his muscles 
contracting spasmodically in his face, that was against hers, 
in his breast, in his arms. 

Has it ever chanced to the reader to encounter a married 
couple blind to each other’s faults, and these faults glaring ? 
One might suppose that daily intercourse would have 
sharpened the perception of each other’s weaknesses, but 
instead of that it blunts it. They cannot detect in each 
other the grotesque, the ugly, the false, that are conspicuous 


ARMINELL. 


153 


and offensive to everyone else. Love, it is, which has softly 
dropped the veil over their eyes, or withdrawn from them 
the faculty of perceiving in each other these blemishes 
which, if perceived, would make common life unendurable. 
Love is well painted as blind, but the blindest of all loves 
is the love of the married. In the case of the Saltrens the 
blindness was on one side only, because on his side only 
was there true love. This had dulled his perception, so 
that he saw not the shallowness, untruthfulness, vanity, and 
heartlessness of Marianne, qualities which her brother saw 
clearly enough. 

“ You have borne your wrong all these years unavenged,’ 
he said. “ My God ! how I have misjudged you! One 
word more, Marianne.” He disengaged himself from her. 
He had been kneeling with his arms enfolding her ; now he 
released his hold, and knelt, bolt-upright, with his hands 
depending to the floor, gaunt, ungainly, motionless. “ Mari- 
anne,” he said, slowly, “ I know so much that I must be 
told all. I must know the rest” He paused for full a 
minute, looking her steadily in the face, still kneeling up 
right, stiffly, uncouthly. “ Who was he ? ” 

Marianne did not speak. Now in turn agitation over- 
came her. Had she gone too far with this story, true or 
false ? 

She raised her hands deprecatingly. What would the 
consequences be ? 

Then, all at once, with a shriek rather than a cry, Saltren 
leaped to his feet. 

“ You need not say a word. I know all now, all — with- 
out your telling me. You were in the Park at the time with 
the old Lady 1 amerton, and — and you had the boy named 
after him.” 

Had there been light in the room, it would have been 
seen how pale was the face of Mrs. Saltren, but that of her 
husband, the captain, had turned a deadlier white still. 


*54 


ARM! NELL. 


“ It all unfolds before me, all becomes plain ! ” he cried. 
“ I wondered whose was the head I saw on the book.” 

“ On what book, Stephen ? ” 

“ I feared, I doubted, but now I doubt no more. It was 
his likeness ! ” 

“ What book do you mean ? ” 

“ The book of the Everlasting Gospel which I saw an 
angel carry in his right hand, flying in the midst of heaven ; 
and he cast the book down, and the book was dipped in 
blood ; and when it fell into the water, the water was turned 
to blood, as the river of Egypt when Israel was about to 
escape.” 

The door flew open, and Giles Inglett Saltren entered, 
wearing a light coat thrown over his evening dress. As he 
came in he removed his hat. 

Captain Saltren turned on him with flashing eyes, and in 
his most sonorous tones said, as hs. waved him away : “Go 
back, go back whence you came. You have no part in me. 
You are not my son. Return to him who has cared for 
you : to him who is your father — Lord Lamerton.” 


CHAPTER XVII. 


HOW JINGLES TOOK IT. 

Giles Inv*kit Saltren stood motionless, his hat in one 
hand, with the other holding the door, looking at the cap- 
tain. No amp had been lighted in the room since the sun 
had set, ar.d he could only see his father’s face indistinctly 
by the pah- evening sky light cast in through the window 
and door. But he would have known from the tones of his 
father’s voice that he was profoundly moved, even if he had 
not caught the words he uttered. At first, indeed, he was 
too surprised to comprehend the full force of these words ; 
but, when their significance became clear to him, he also 
became moved, and he said gravely : 

“ This must be explained.” 

“ What I said is quickly explained,” answered the captain ; 
and he rose to his feet. 

Does the reader remember a familiar toy of childhood 
composed of pretty birds, with feathers stuck in them, strung 
on horsehair or wires so as to form a sort of cage, but with this 
difference, that the cage did not contain the birds ? When 
this toy was set down, all the little figures quivered slowly, 
uncertainly, to the bottom, and when it was reversed, the 
same process was repeated. It was so with the captain’s 
speech. His words were threaded on the tremulous strings 
of his vocal organ, and not only quivered from a high pitch 
down, but also went up from a low one with much vibration 
on high. A voice of this quality is provocative of sympathy ; 


ARMINELL. 


* 5 6 

as, when a violincello string is touched, a piano chord 
trembles responsive. Such voices make not the voices, but 
the hearts of other men to tremble. I know a slater who, 
when I am ordering of him slates, brings tears into my eyes 
by asking if I will have “ Du :hess ” or “ Rag.” 

“ My words are quickly explained,” said Stephen Saltren. 
“ I have never regarded you as my son — have never treated 
you as such. You know that I have shown you no fatherly 
affection, because I knew from the beginning that not a 
drop of my blood flowed in your veins. But never, before 
this evening, have I allowed you, or any one else, to suspect 
what I knew, lest the honour of your mother should suffer. 
Now, and only now, has the entire truth been disclosed to 
me. I did not suspect it, no, not when you were christened 
and given the name you bear. I thought it was a compli- 
ment paid through a fancy of your mother’s to the family in 
which she had lived, that was all. A little flickering 
suspicion may have been aroused afterwards, when his lord- 
ship, to save you from consumption, sent you abroad ; but 
I put it angrily from me as unworthy of being harboured. 
I had no real grounds for suspicion ; since then it has come 
up. in my heart again and again, and I have stamped down 
the hateful thought with a kind of rage and shame at myself 
for thinking it. Only to-night has the whole story been 
told me, and I find that your mother was not to blame — 
that no real dishqno.flr stains her — that all the fault, all the 
guilt, lies on and/blackens — blackens and degrades his 
soulf” 

“ I did not mean to say — that is, I did not wish — ” began 
Mrs. Saltren, in a weeping, expostulating tone. 

“ Marianne, say nothing.” Captain Saltren turned to her. 
“It is not for you to justify yourself to your child. The 
story shall be told him by me. I will spare you the pain 
and shame.” 

“But, mother,” said Jingles, shutting the door behind 


ARMINELL. 


157 


him and leaning his back against it, “ I must be told the 
. whole truth. I must have it at least confirmed by your 
lips.” 

“ My dear,” — Mrs. Saltren’s voice shook — “ I would not 
make mischief, for the world. I hate above everything the 
mischief-makers. If there be one kind of people I abhor it 
is those who make mischief; and I am, thank heaven, not 
one of such.” ♦ 

“Quite so,” said her son, gravely; “but I must know 
what I have to believe, for I must act on it.” 

“ Oh, my dear, do nothing ! Let it remain, if you love 
me, just as if it had never been told. I should die of shame 
were it to come out.” 

“It shall not come out,” said Giles ; “but I must know 
from your lips, mother, whether I am — I cannot say it. 
My happiness, my future depend on my knowledge of what 
my real parentage is. You can understand that?” 

“Well, then, it is true that you are not Stephen Saltren’s 
son, and it is true that I was a shamefully-used and deceived 
woman, and that I had no bad intentions whatever. I was 
always a person of remarkable delicacy and refinement above 
my station. As for who your father was, I name no names; 
and, indeed, just now, when the captain asked me, I said 
\the same — that I would name no names, and so I stick to 
the same resolution, and nothing more shall be torn from 
me, not if you were to tear me to pieces with a chain 
harrow.” 

“Come without,” said the captain, “and you shall hear 
from me how it came to pass. We must spare your mother’s 
feelings. She was not in fault, she was wickedly imposed 
on.” 

Then the mining captain moved to the door; Giles 
Inglett opened it, and stood aside to allow his reputed father 
to go through ; then he followed him and shut the door 
behind them. 


ARMINELL. 


is? 

Half an hour passed. Mrs. Saltren remained for some 
minutes seated where she had been, consoling herself with 
the reflection that she had named no names ; and that, if 
mischief came of this, the fact would attach to Saltren, not 
to her. A little while ago we said that love was blind, 
hymeneal love most blind ; but blind with incurable oph- 
thalmia, blindest of all blindness, is self-love. 

Mrs. Saltren rose and went about her domestic affairs. 

“No one can charge me,” said she, “with having kept 
my house untidy, or with having left unmended my hus- 
band’s clothes, To think of the cartloads of buttons I’ve 
put on during my married life ! It is enough to convince 
any but the envious. Well, it is a comfort that Stephen 
has been brought to his senses at last, and come to view 
matters in a proper light. I’ve heard James say that there 
is a nerve goes from each eyeball into the brain, and afore 
they enter it they take a twist about each other, and, so 
coupled, march in together. And James said if it were not 
so we should see double, and neither eye would agree with 
the other. I mind quite well that he said this one day 
when I was complaining to him that Stephen and I didn’t 
get on quite right together. He said we’d get our twist 
one day and then see all alike. What he said is come 
true ; leastways, the proper twist has come in Stephen. 
Thank God, I always see straight.” 

She went to a corner cupboard and opened it. 

“ Now that Stephen is gone,” she said, “ I’ll rinse out the 
glass James had for his gin-and-water. Saltren is that 
crazy on teetotalism that he would be angry if he knew I 
had given James any, and angry to think I kept spirits in 
the house ; and because he is so stupid I’m obliged to put 
it in a medicine-bottle with ‘ For outward application only’ 
on it, and say it is a lotion for neuralgia. It is a mercy that 
I named no names, so my conscience is clear. It is just as 
in Egypt, when there was darkness over all the land, the 


ARMINELL. 159 

Israelites had light in their dwellings. I thank goodness 
I’ve always the clearest of light in me.” 

She removed the tumbler and washed it in the back 
kitchen. 

“When one comes to consider it, after all, Stephen isn't 
so very much out in his reckoning. When does a noble- 
man take a delicate lad out of a school and send him to a 
warm climate because his lungs are affected, and then give' 
him scholarship and college education, without having 
something that makes him do it ? Are there no other 
delicate lads with weak lungs besides Giles? Why did riot 
his lordship send them to Bordighera ? Are there-^po 
other clever young fellows in national schools besides %y 
boy, to be taken up and pushed on ? There must have 
been some reason for my lord selecting Giles. Was it 
because I had been in service in the house ? Other young 
women out of the Park have married and had children, but 
I never heard of my lord doing anything for their sons. 
None of them have been sent to college and made into 
gentlemen except my boy. But then I was uncommonly 
good-looking, that is true, and not another young hussey at 
the Park was fit to hold a candle to me. Though, the 
Lord knows, I never set store on good looks. If it pleases 
his lordship to treat Giles almost as if he were a son, he 
has a right to do so, but he must take the consequences. 

I don’t interfere with the fancies of others, but if any one 
chooses to do a queer thing, he must expect to have to 
answer for it. I have no doubt that his lordship has fre- 
quently wished he had a son, such a fine and handsome 
fellow as my Giles, and for some years he was without any 
son of his own to inherit his title. There was only Miss 
Arminell. Anyhow, no responsibility attaches to me, what- 
ever may be said. No one can blame me. His lordship 
ought never to have taken notice of Giles, never to have 
had the doctor examine his lungs, and, when told that the 


ARMINELL. 


160 

boy would die unless sent to the south of France, he should 
have said, ‘ He is the son of poor parents, who can’t afford 
the expense, so I suppose he must die.’ No one could 
have blamed him, then. And when Giles came back — 
better, but still delicate, and not suited to do hard work— 
my lord should not have sent him to school and college, 
and taken him in at Orleigh Park as tutor to his son — he 
should not have done any of these things unless he had 
made up his mind to take the consequences. Scripture 
says that no man sets down to build a tower without having 
first counted the cost. It is not at all unlikely that folks 
will say queer things, and I know for certain my husband 
thinks queer fancies about my boy and Lord Lamer 
ton ; but who is to blame for that? If his lordship didn’t 
want to make it thought by all the world that Giles was his 
son, all I can say is, he shouldn’t have done for him what 
he did. It is not my place to stop idle talk. I’d like to 
know whether it is any woman’s duty to run about a parish 
correcting the mistakes made by the gossiping tongues 
therein. I thank heaven I am not a gadabout. I do my 
duty, washing, and ironing, and mending of waistcoats, and 
sewing on of buttons, and darning of stocking-feet, and 
baking of meat-dumplings, and peeling of potatoes ; that is 
what my work is, and I do it well. I don’t take upon me 
the putting to rights of other folks when in error. Every 
one stands for himself. If you cut the wick crooked you 
must expect your chimney -glass to get smoked, and, if Lord 
Lamerton has snipped his wick askew, he must look out 
for fish-tails.” 

Mrs. Saltren removed her petroleum lamp-glass, struck a 
match, and proceeded slowly to light her lamp. 

I remember James telling me once, how that he had 
been in France, I think he called it La Vendee, where the 
fields are divided by dykes full of stagnant water ; and one 
of the industries of the place is the collecting of leeches. 


ARMINELL. 


161 


The men roll up their breeches above the knee and carry a 
pail, and wade in the ditches, and now and again throw up 
a leg, and sweep off two, three, or it may be a dozen 
leeches from the calf into the pail. Then they wade 
further, and up with a leg again, and off with a fresh batch 
of leeches. I haven’t been in a big house, and seen the 
ways of the aristocracy, and not found out that they are 
waders in leech dykes, and that it is as much as they can 
do to keep their calves clear, and their blood from being 
sucked out of them altogether. Now what I want to know 
is, if a starved leech does bite, and suck and swell, and is 
not wiped off and sent to market, but gets reg’lar blown out 
with blood, hasn’t that leech a right to say that he has in 
him the blood of the man to whom he has attached him- 
self? I’d ask any independent jury whether my Giles 
Inglett has eaten and drunk more at Saltren’s expense, or 
at that of his lordship, whether he does not owe his very 
life to his lordship as much as to me, for he’d have died of 
decline, if he had not been sent to the South ? And if he 
owes his life to Lord Lamerton equally as he does to me, 
and has been fed and clothed, and educated by him and 
not by Saltren. why then, like the leech, he can say he has 
the blood of the Lamertons in him. That is common 
sense. And again — bother that lamp ! ” 

Mrs. Saltren in place of turning the wick up, had turned 
it down, and was obliged to remove the chimney and strike 
another match. 

“ And then,” she continued, “ if Lord Lamerton has not 
chose to wipe him off into the pail, who is to blame but 
himself? If he choose to keep his leg in a leech pond, 
there’s neither rhyme nor reason in my objecting ; and he 
has no claim to cry out. Put Giles on a plate, and sprinkle 
salt on him, and whose blood will come out? Any one 
can see he is a gentleman! He has imbibed it all, his 


L 


162 


AR MIN ELL. 


manners, his polish, his knowledge, everything he has, from 
Lord Lamerton and others ; all the world can see it.” 

Then in came the young man about whom she was argu- 
ing with herself. He could not speak so great was his 
agitation, but he went to his mother, and threw his arms 
about her, clasped her to his heart, and kissed her. For 
some time he could not say anything, but after a while he 
conquered his emotion sufficiently to say — 

“ Oh, my mother — my poor mother ! Oh, my dear, my 
ill-used mother ! ” and then again his emotions got the 
better of him. “ I cannot,” he said, after a pause, with a 
renewed effort to govern himself, “ I cannot say what I 
shall do now, I cannot even think, but I am sure of one 
thing, I must remain no longer at the Park.” 

“ My boy ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Saltren. “ Fall off yourself 
into the plate and salt ! ” 

“ I do not understand,” said he. She left him in his 
ignorance ; she had been thinking of the leeches. 

“ My dear Giles ! Whatever you do, don’t breathe a 
word of this to any one.” 

“ Mother, I will not, you may be sure of that.” 

“Not to Lord Lamerton above all — not for heaven’s 
sake.” 

' u Least of all to him.” 

“ I should get into such trouble. Oh, my gracious ! ” 

“ Mother, dear,” the young fellow clasped her to his 
heart again, “ how inexpressibly precious you are to me 
now, and how I grieve for you. I can say no more now.” 

Then he went forth. 

“ Why, bless me ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Saltren. “ He never 
was so affectionate before. Well, as far as human reason 
goes, it does seem as if all things were being brought to 
their best for me ; for this day has given me my husband’s 
love and doubled that of my son.” 

Giles Inglett Saltren walked hastily back to the Park. 


armineljl. 


163 


On his way he encountered Samuel Ceely, who put forth 
his maimed hand, and crooked the remaining fingers in his 
overcoat to arrest him, as he went by. 

“What do you want with me?” asked Jingles impatiently. 

“ I should be so glad if you would put in a word for me,” 
pleaded the old man. 

“I am engaged — I cannot wait.” 

“ But,” urged old Ceely, without letting go his hold, 
“Joan has axed Miss Arminell fora scullery-maid’s place 
for me. Now I’d rather have to do wi’ the dogs, or I could 
keep the guns beautifully clean, or even the stables.” 

“I really cannot attend to this!” said Jingles impatiently. 
“ I have other matters of more importance now on my 
mind; besides, my influence is not what — ” he spoke 
bitterly — “ what it should be in the great house.” 

“ You might do me a good turn, and speak a word for 
me.” 

“ The probability of my speaking a good word for you, or 
any one, to Lord Lamerton, or of doing any one a good turn 
in Orleigh Park, is gone from me for ever,” said Giles. 
“ You must detain me no longer — it is useless. Let me go.” 

He shook himself free from the clutch ot the old man, 
and walked along the road. 

After he had gone several paces, perhaps a hundred 
yards, he turned — moved by what impulse was unknown to 
him — and looked back. In the road, lit by the moon, 
stood the cripple, stretching forth his maimed hand after 
him, with the claw-like fingers. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


HOW ARMINELL TOOK IT. 

Giles Inglett Saltren walked on fast, he was disturbed 
in the stream of his thoughts by the interruption of the 
tiresome old cripple. He had more important matters to 
occupy his mind than the requirements of Samuel Ceely. 
His heart beat, his hands became moist. What a mar- 
vellous disclosure had been made to him — and he wondered 
at himself for not having divined it before. He argued 
much as did his mother. Why had Lord Lamerton done 
such great things for him, why had he sent him abroad, 
found him money, given him education, lifted him far 
above the sphere in which his parents moved, unless he 
felt called to do so by a sense of responsibility, such as 
belongs to a father ? 

To a whole class of minds disinterested conduct is in- 
conceivable. All such conduct as is oblique is to them 
intelligible, and allowance is made by them % for stupidity, 
and stupidity with them is the same thing as unselfishness. 
But such unselfishness is permissible only by fits as lapses 
from the course which all men naturally take. But that 
men should act consistently on disinterested motives is an 
idea too preposterous for them to allow of its existence. 

This class of minds does not belong specially to any 
particular stratum of society, though it is found to be most 


ARMINELL. 1 65 

prevalent where the struggle for existence is most keen, and 
where there is least culture. 

But of culture there are two kinds, that which is ex- 
ternal, and that which is within : it is generally found that 
this inability to understand disinterested conduct is found 
everywhere where the inner culture does not exist. 

There is, we believe, a Rabbinic legend concerning a 
certain cow which was its own calf, and much disputation 
ensued among the Talmudists, to determine the point of 
time at which the cow calved itself, and when it ceased to 
be accounted beef, and became veal, or the contrary. But 
what seems to us Gentiles to be impossible in the material 
sense, is possible enough in the spiritual realm, and a very 
calf-like self may become the mother of a cow-self, so vast, 
so considerable that, like the Brahminic cow, Varuna, it 
will occupy the entire firmament, extend to the horizon on 
all sides, and overshadow and envelope everything. Varuna 
in fact is the universe, and as we see and exist in that uni- 
verse, so with the cow-self born of calf-self, it becomes our 
universe. We see only that cow, inhale the breath of that 
cow, think only cow thoughts, stand on cow, and our as- 
pirations are limited on all sides by cow. That cow is 
Self born of self. The breath of that cow is sweet to our 
nostrils, its milk the nourishment of our bowels, its low is 
music to our ears, and nothing that does not smell and 
taste and sound of that cow is worthy of being smelt, and 
tasted, and listened to. 

Of this cow we can give information unattainable by the 
Rabbis. We can watch its development, if we cannot 
determine the moment of its nativity. It probably comes 
to the birth at an early age, but there is this deserving of 
consideration about it that this cow born of calf can be 
bled to whiteness, and knocked on the head if taken in 
time. 

If, however, it be allowed to attain to heiferhood, it is 


1 66 


ARMINELL. 


thenceforth unmanageable : we see everything through its 
medium, and like and ohslike, love and hate all objects and 
persons as they stand within or without of the compass of 
the great cow-self, which has become our Varuna, our uni- 
verse. 

It must not be supposed that such as live under the 
shadow of this great cow, are oppressed by it. On the con- 
trary they; have become so accustomed to it that they could 
not exist apart from it. There is a story of a man who 
carried a monstrous cow on his shoulders, and explained 
that he had acquired the ability to do so by beginning with 
the creature when it was a day old. As the calf grew, so 
grew his ability to support its weight. It is the same with 
us, we carry the little calf-self about on our shoulder, and 
dance along the road and leap over the stones, and as day 
by day the calf grows, so does our capacity for carrying it, 
till at last we trudge about everywhere, into all society, even 
into church, with the monstrous cow-self on our shoulders, 
and do not feel that we have anything weighing on us what- 
soever. 

Now Giles Inglett Saltren had grown up nursing and 
petting this calf. He had good natural abilities, but partly 
through his mother’s folly, partly through external circum- 
stances, he had come to see everything through a medium 
of self. The notice taken of him by his schoolmaster be- 
cause he was intelligent, by Lord Lamerton because he was 
delicate, the very stethoscoping of his lungs, the jellies and 
grapes sent him from the great house, the petting he got in 
the servants’ hall, because he was handsome and interest- 
ing, the superiority he had acquired over his. parents by his 
residence abroad, and education, all tended to the feeding 
a id fattening of the calf-self ; and the cod-liver oil he had 
consumed, had not merely gone to restore his lungs, but to 
1 uild up piles of yellow fat on the flanks of self, jingles 
had already reached that point at which his cow had be- 


ARMINELL. 


167 


come Varuna, his entire universe. He thought of, con- 
sidered, nothing from any other point of view than as it 
touched himself. 

His consciousness of discomfort in the society of Orleigh, 
his bitterness of mood, his resentment of the distinctions 
not purposely made, but naturally existing and necessarily 
insuperable, between himself and those with whom he 
associated, all this sprang out of the one source, all came of 
the one disease — intense, all-absorbing, all-prevailing self- 
ishness. 

He observed the natural ease that pervaded all the actions 
of those with whom he was brought into contact in the 
upper world, and their complete lack of self-consciousness, 
their naturalness, simplicity, in all they said and did. He 
had not got it — he could not acquire it, he was like a maid- 
of-all-work from a farmhouse on a market day in the county 
town wearing a Mephistopheles hat on her red head, and 
ten-button gloves on her mottled arms. He was conscious 
of his self-consciousness — he feared it would be remarked. 
It made him suspicious and envious and angry. He could 
not reach to the ease of those above him, and therefore he 
desired to level them to his own plane. A man with black 
blood in his veins is fearful lest those at the table should 
look at his nails. Jingles was ever dreading lest some 
chance glance should discover the want of breed in himself. 

This caused him much misery ; and this all came of his 
carrying about the cow-self with him into my lady’s boudoir, 
and my lord’s study, to the dining-room, and to the parlour. 

I was at the autumn fair some years ago at Liege ; on 
the boulevards were streets of booths, some for the sale of 
cakes and toys, others shows ; but, as among the stalls 
those for cakes prevailed, so among the shows did the Rig- 
olade Parisienne preponderate. 

Not having the faintest conception of what the Rigolade 
was, I paid my sou and entered one in quest of knowledge ; 


i68 


ARMINELL. 


and this is what I saw — a series of mirrors. But there was 
this peculiar about the mirrors, one was convex, and in it I 
beheld my nose reduced to a pimple, and my eyes to cur- 
rants ; another was concave, in which my nose swelled to a 
proboscis and my eyes to plums. A third mirror multiplied 
my face fifty times. A fourth showed me my face elong- 
ated, as when my MS. has been returned “ not suited,” 
from an editor ; a fifth widened my face to an absurd grin ; 
in a sixth I saw my pleasant self magnified in serene and 
smiling beauty in the midst, and showed me every surround- 
ing person and object, the faces of men, the houses, the 
cathedral, the sky, the sun, all distorted out of shape and 
proportions. “ Eh 9a, M’sou,” said the showman, “ c’est la 
veritable Rigolade Parisienne.” 

Eh 9a — my dear readers, was Giles Inglett Saltren’s 
vision of life. He saw himself infinitely magnified and 
everything else dwarfed about him and tortured into mon- 
strosity. 

Of one thing I am very certain, dear reader, in this great 
Rigolade of life into which we have entered, and through 
which we are walking, there are some who are always seeing 
themselves in the multiplying mirror, and there are others 
who contemplate their faces continually elongated, whilst 
others again see themselves in the widening mirror and ac- 
commodate themselves to be the perpetual buffoon. Let 
us trust that these are not many, but there certainly are 
some who view themselves enlarged, and view everything 
and every person beside, the world about them, the heaven 
above them, in a state of distortion. 

Lord Lamerton had shown the young tutor extraordinary 
kindness, for he was a man with a soft heart, and he really 
wished to make the young fellow happy. He would have 
liked Giles to have opened out to him and not to have 
maintained a formal distance, but he was unable to do more 
than invite confidence, and he attributed the stiffness of 


ARMINELL. 


169 

the tutor to his shyness. Of late, his lordship had begun 
to think that perhaps Jingles was somewhat morbid, but 
this he attributed to his constitutional delicacy. Con- 
sumptive people are fantastical, was his hasty generaliz- 
ation. 

In the heart of Giles Inglett Saltren a very mixed feeling 
existed as he walked back to the park. He was gratified 
to think that he had noble blood in his veins, but he was 
incensed at the thought of the treachery to which his 
mother had fallen a victim, and which robbed him of his 
birthrights. Had that function in the drawing-room, de- 
scribed by his mother, been celebrated legally, he and not 
the snivelling little Giles would be heir to Orleigh, to fifty 
thousand a year, and a coronet, and a seat in the House of 
Lords. What use would Giles the Little make of his 
privileges? Would he not lead the same prosaic life as 
his father, planting pines, digging fish-ponds, keeping a 
pack of hounds, doing the active work of a county magnate 
and magistrate? — whereas he — Giles Inglett Saltren, no 
longer Saltren, but Baron Lamerton of Orleigh, might be- 
come, with the advantages of his birth, wealth, and abilities 
combined, the greatest statesman and reformer England 
had known. He felt that his head was bursting with ideas, 
his blood on fire to give them utterance, and his hands 
tingling to carry his projects into effect. Without some ad- 
ventitious help, such as position and wealth could give, he 
could not take the place he knew by inner illumination 
should be his. 

“ I was sure of it,” said Jingles, “ that is to say I imagined 
that I could not be the son of a common mining captain. 
There was something superior to that sort of stuff in me. 
But now this infamous act of treachery stands between me 
and acknowledgment by the world, between me and such 
success as, perhaps no man in England, except perhaps Mr. 
Gladstone, has attained to. All I want is a lift on the 


ARMINELL. 


170 

ladder — after that first step I will mount the rest of the way 
myself.” 

He walked on fast. His blood seethed in his heart. He 
was angry with LordLamerton for having betrayed his mother’s 
trust, and with his mother for allowing herself to be deceived. 

“ Something may yet be done. It is not impossible that 
I may discover what has not been suspected. I must dis- 
cover this friend who pretended to be a parson, and search 
the archiepiscopal registers for the alleged licence. It is 
hardly likely, that my lord would dare to fabricate a false 
licence, or for a friend of his to run the risk, out of friend- 
ship, of twenty-five years’ penal servitude. No — it is, calmly 
considered, far more likely that a true licence was obtained, 
that the marriage though secret, was valid, and that my 
mother was imposed upon, when assured she had been 
duped, and then she was forced on Captain Saltren to dis- 
pose of her securely against discovering her rights and de- 
manding them. I will go to town and then take advice 
what to do. It will, perhaps, be best for me thence to write 
to his lordship and ask for the particulars, threatening unless 
they are furnished me voluntarily, that I will search them 
out for myself. If I were the Honourable Giles Inglett,” 
mused Jingles, with his eyes on the moonlit road, “how 
utterly different my position in the house would be to what 
it now is. That confounded butler — who assumes a patron- 
ising air, and would, if I gave him encouragement, pat me 
on the shoulder. That impudent valet, who brought me 
up the wrong waistcoat yesterday morning, and allowed me 
to ring thrice before he chose to answer the bell, and never 
apologised for having kept me waiting. Then, again, at 
table the other day, when something was said of fish out o 
water, the footman touched my back with the dish of curried 
prawns. He did it intentionally, he meant that I was a fish 
out of water, a curried prawn myself, in fiery heat. There was 
something said among the gentlemen about Gammon, the 


ARMINELL. 


171 

man who has just been created High Sheriff. He made his 
money in mines. One of those present said that those 
feilows who scramble into society for which they are not 
qualified always reminded him of French poodles, half- 
shaven and half-savage ; every one laughed and the laugh 
cut me like knives. I am sure several at the table thought 
of me, and that they have taken to calling me * the French 
poodle.’ What am I ? I am either his lordship’s legitimate 
but unacknowledged son-— and if so I am shaved all over ; 
but if I am as he would pretend, his bastard — I am half- 
shaved, and so half-shaved I must run about the world, 
laughed at, thought monstrous, pitied, a creature of aristo- 
cratic and plebeian origin commingled, with the hair about 
my neck, and ears, and eyes, and nose, but all the rest of 
me polished and cultured. A poodle indeed! I — a French 
poodle ! ” 

A piece of decayed branch fallen from a tree lay in the 
road. Jingles kicked it away. 

“ That,” said he passionately, “ is what I should like to 
do to the butler, were I the Honourable Giles. And that,” 
he kicked another stick, “ is how I would treat that brute 
who allowed me to wait for my waistcoat. And so,” he 
trod on and snapped a twig that lay athwart his path, “ so 
would I crush the footman who dared to nudge me with 
the curried prawns ! And,” he caught a hazel bough that 
hung from the hedge, and broke it off, and ripped the 
leaves away, and then with his teeth pulled the rind away, 
“and this is what I would do to that man who dared to 
talk of half-shaved French poodles. Oh ! if I could be but 
a despot — a dictator for an hour — for an hour only — to 
ram the curried prawns down the throat .of that insolent 
ruffian who nudged me, and to flay alive that creature who 
spoke of poodles ! Then I would cheerfully surrender mv 
power into the hands of the people and be the democratic 
leader once more.” 


172 


ARMINELL. 


He entered the park grounds by a side-gate and was 
soon on the terrace. There he saw Arminell returning to 
the house from her stroll in the avenue. 

“ Mr. Saltren,” she said, “ have you also been enjoying 
the beauty of the night ? ” 

“ I have been trying to cool the fever within/’ he replied. 

“ I hope,” she said, misunderstanding him, “ that you 
have not caught the influenza, or whatever it is from Giles.” 

“ I have taken nothing from Giles. The fever I speak of 
is not physical.” 

“ Oh ! you are still thinking of what we discussed over 
the Noah’s Ark.” 

“ Yes — how can I help it ? I who am broken and 
trodden on at every moment.” 

“ I am sorry to hear you say this, Mr. Saltren. I also 
have been talking the matter over with papa, and after he 
went in, I have been walking up and down under the 
trees meditating on it— but I get no farther, for all my 
thinking/’ 

“Miss Inglett,” said Jingles, “the time of barley-mows is 
at an end. Hitherto we have had the oats, and the wheat, 
and the rye, and the clover, and the meadow-grass ricked, 
stacked separately. All that is of the past. The age of 
the stack-yard is over with its several distinct classified 
ricks — this is wheat, that is rye ; this is clover, that damaged 
hay. We are now entering an age of Silo, and inevitably as 
feudalism is done away with, so will the last relics of 
distinctions be swept aside also, and we shall all enter an 
universal and common silo.” 

“ I do not think I quite understand you.” 

' “ Henceforth all mankind will make one, all contribute 
to the common good, all be pressed together and the in- 
dividuality of one pass to become the property of all.” 

Arminell shook her head and laughed. 

“ I confess that I find great sweetness in the old stack- 


ARMINELL. 


173 


yard, and a special fragrance attaches to each rick. Is* all 
that to be a thing of the past, and the savour of the silo to 
be the social atmosphere of the future ? ” 

“You strain the illustration,” said Saltren, testily. 

“You wish to substitute an aggregate of nastiness for 
diversified sweets.” 

“ Miss Inglett, I will say no more. I thought you more 
sympathetic with the aspirations of the despised and down- 
trodden, with the movement of ideas in the present 
century.” 

“ I am sympathetic,” said Arminell. “ But I am as be- 
wildered now as I was this morning. I am just as one who 
has been spun through the spiral tunnel on the. St. Gothard 
line, when one rushes forth into day : you know neither in 
which direction you are going, nor to what level you are 
brought. I dislike your similitude of a silo, and so have a 
right to criticise it.” 

“Arminell,” said Jingles standing still. 

“ Mr. Saltren ! ” The girl reared herself haughtily, and 
spoke with icy coldness. 

“ Exactly,” laughed the tutor, bitterly. “ I thought as 
much ! You will not allow the presumed son of a man- 
ganese captain, the humble tutor, to presume an approach 
of familiarity to the honourable the daughter of a peer.” 

“ I allow no one to presume,” said she, haughtily, and 
turned her back on him, and resumed her walk. 

“Yet I have a right,” pursued Jingles, striding after her. 
“ Miss Inglett — Arminell, listen to me. I am not the man 
to presume. I know and am made to feel too sharply my 
inferiority to desire to take a liberty. But I have a right, 
and I stand on my right. I have a right to call you by your 
Christian name, a right which you will acknowledge. I 
am your brother.” 

Arminell halted, turned and looked at him from head to 
loot with surprise mingled with disdain. 


ARMINELL. 


174 

“^You doubt my words,” he went on. “ I am not 
offended — I am not surprised at that ; indeed, I expected 
it. But what I say is true. We have different mothers, 
mine ” — with bitterness — “ of the people, that I allow — of 
the people, of the common, base lot, who are dirt under 
your feet ; yours is of the aristocracy, made much of, re- 
ceived in society, in the magic circle from which mine would 
be shut out. But we have one father; I stand to you in 
precisely the same relation as does the boy Giles, but I am 
your elder brother, and should be your adviser and closest 
friend.” 






CHAPTER XIX. 


LITTLE JOHN NOBODY. 

Giles Inglett Saltren had promised his mother to sa\ 
nothing to any one of what had been told him, but the 
temptation had come strongly upon him to tell Arminell 
that he was not the nobody she and others supposed, and 
he had succumbed in the temptation. He and the girl had 
interests in common, sympathies that drew them together, 
and he felt that it would be of extraordinary benefit to her, 
and a pleasure to himself, if, in that great house, where each 
was so solitary, they could meet without the barrier which 
had hitherto divided them and prevented the frank inter- 
change of ideas and the communication of confidences. 
Later on in the evening, it is true, he felt some twinges ot 
conscience, but they were easily stilled. 

Jingles had greatly felt his loneliness. He had been 
without a friend, without even a companion. He could not 
associate with those of his mother’s class, for he was separ- 
ated from them by his education, and he made no friends 
in the superior class, from the suspicion with whic.i he 
regarded its members. He had made acq aintances at 
college, but he could not ask them to stay atChillacot when 
he was at the Park, nor invite them as guests to Orleigh ; 
consequently, these acquaintanceships died natural deaths. 
Nevertheless, that natural craving which exists in all hearts 
to have a familiar friend, a person with whom to associate 
and open the soul, was strong in Jingles. 


176 


ARMINELL. 


If the reader has travelled in a foreign country — let us 
say in Bohemia — and is ignorant of the tongue, Czech, he 
has felt the irksomeness of a table d'hftte at which he has sat, 
and of which he has partaken, without being able to join in 
the general conversation. He has felt embarrassed, has 
longed for the dinner to be over, that he might retire to his 
solitary chamber. Yet, when there, he wearies over his 
loneliness, and descends to the coffee-room, there to sip his 
cafe noir , and smoke, and pare his nails, and turn over a 
Czech newspaper, make up his accounts, then sip again, 
again turn over the paper, re-examine his nails, and recalcu- 
late his expenditure, in weariful iteration, and long for the 
time when he can call for his bill and leave. But, if some 
one at an adjoining table says, “ Ach ! zu Englitsch ! ” how 
he leaps to eager dialogue, how he takes over his 'coffee- cup 
and cognac to the stranger’s table ; how he longs to hug the 
barbarian, who professes to “speaque a littelle Englitsch.” 
How he clings to him, forgives him his blunders, opens a 
thirsty ear to his jargon, forces on him champagne and 
cigars, forgets the clock, his nails, his notes, the bill and the 
train, in the delight of having met one with whom he can 
for a moment forget his isolation. " 

If this be so when meeting with a foreigner, how much 
more cordial is our encounter with a pleasant Englishman. 
We at once seek out links of connection, to establish the 
fact of our having mutual acquaintances. 

So did the impulse come on Saltren and overpower him. 
There was a community of ideas between him and Arminell; 
and he was swept away by his desire to find a companion, 
into forgetfulness of the promise he had made to his mother. 

That he was doing wrong in telling the girl a secret, 
about which he had no right to let a hint fall without her 
father’s knowledge and consent, could hardly be hid from 
his cor science, but he refused to listen, and excused himself 
on grounds satisfactory to his vanity. It was good for Armi- 


ARM IN ELL. 


177 


nell herself to know the relationship, that she might be able 
to lean on him without reserve. Giles Inglett Saltren had 
been very solitary in Orleigh. He had not, indeed, been 
debarred the use of his mother-tongue ; but he had been 
unable to give utterance to his thoughts; and of what profit 
is the gift of speech to a man, if he may not speak out what 
is on his mind? The young are possessed with eager desire 
to turn themselves inside out, and to show every one their 
internal organisation. A polypus has the same peculiarity. 

It becomes weary of exposing one surface to the tide, and 
. so frankly and capriciously inverts itself, so that what was • 
coat of stomach becomes external tissue, and the outer skin 
accommodates itself to the exercise of digestive func- 
tions. Young people do the same, and do it publicly, in 
society, in a drawing-room, in unsympathetic company. As 
we grow older we acquire reserve, and gradually withdraw 
our contents within ourselves, and never dream of allowing 
any other surface to become exposed to the general eye, 
but that furnished us by nature as our proper external en- 
velope. The young tutor had his own crude, indigested 
notions, a mind in ferment, and an inflamed and irritable 
internal tissue, and he naturally and eagerly embraced the 
only opportunity he had of inverting himself. 

Then, again, a still mightier temptation operated on 
Jingles, the temptation which besets every man to assume 
the rdle of somebody, who has been condemned to play the 
part of nobody, when an opening is given. 

There is a poem in Percy’s Reliques, that represents the 
grievances of the common Englishman at the time of the 
Reformation, who dislikes the change that is going on 
about him, the introduction of novelties, the greed that 
masqueraded under the name of religion ; and every verse 
ends with the burden, “But I am little John Nobody, and 
durst not speak.” 

Jingles had been unable to express his opinion, to appear 

M 


i7» 


ARMINELL, 


to have any opinion at all ; he had been in the house, af 
table, everywhere, a little John Nobody who durst not 
speak. Now the role of little John Nobody is a role dis- 
tasteful to every one, especially to one who has a good 
opinion of himself. Imagine the emotions of an actor who 
has been doomed for years to be a walking gentleman, to 
whom has been suddenly offered the part of Hamlet. 
Would he not embrace the chance with avidity ? 

When Arminell approached Jingles with a not exactly, 
“ Me speaque a littelle Englitsch ! ” but with the confession 
that she understood his mind, and was asking of life the 
same questions that troubled him, then he warmed to her 
and longed for a closer intercourse. When, moreover, 
he found that it was possible for him to establish a tie of a 
close and binding nature between them, it was more than 
his moral courage could resist to break the seal of silence 
and tell her who he was. 

But Jingles had entered into no particulars, and 
Arminell could not rest with the half-knowledge she 
possessed. She could not ask him to tell her more, nor 
could she explain the circumstances. She could not 
endure to be kept in partial ignorance, and immediately 
after breakfast, on the following morning, she went to 
Chillacot to see Mrs. Saltren. 

• The captain’s wife was greatly alarmed when she heard 
what was wanted. Arminell spoke coldly, distantly, 
hdughtily. Mr. Giles Inglett Saltren, she said, had let 
drop some words that implied a relationship. She must 
know whether there were any foundations for the implica- 
tion. Mrs. Saltren trembled and made excuses, and 
attempted evasions ; but Arminell was determined to know 
the facts, and she forced the woman to repeat to her the 
story she had told on the previous night. 

“ But, oh, miss ! I named no names ; and Giles never 
ought to have breathed a word about it. I will go down 


ARMINELL. 


179 


on my knees to you to beg you to say nothing to any one 
about this matter.” 

“ Do you suppose it is a subject I am likely to discuss— 
to Mrs. Cribbage, for instance? That I will talk freely of 
an affair which compromises the honour of my father?” 

“ There is scarce any one knows about it.” 

“ Except my father, yourself, and your son.” 

“ And the captain ; but, miss, I beg you to bear witness 
that I named no names.” 

‘‘ I want to know no more, none of the details,” said 
Arminell, “ I only trust they may all be rolled up and cast 
away into oblivion.” 

She returned to the Park, went into the music-room and 
began to practise on the piano. She was able to do the 
mechanical work and think at the same time. She believed 
the story she had been told, not so much because Marianne 
Saltren had related it, as because Jingles so confidently be- 
lieved it. He would never have spoken to her on the 
matter had he harboured the slightest shadow of doubt. 

But the story was one on which her mind must busy it- 
self. She began unconsciously to play Agatha’s song 
“ Leise, leise,” from “ Der Freischiitz,” and as she played, 
two tears rolled down her cheeks. 

She had always regarded her father with respect as a 
man of principle and strict notions of honour, though she 
did not consider him as a man of ability. Now he ap- 
peared to her in a light that showed him guilty of conduct 
unworthy of a gentleman, inexpressibly base and cowardly. 
His behaviour towards her own mother had been bad, for 
Arminell was satisfied that her mother would never have 
married Lord Lamerton had she been allowed to suspect 
that his character was stained with such an ugly blur. 

“ I am glad she died,” said the girl with a sob, and then 
with a start she asked, “ How was it that that woman was 
in the house with nay mother? How could she bear it? 


l8o ARMINELL. 

No ; my dearest mother knew nothing, had no suspicions, 
and it was generous of Mrs. Saltren to be so near, and 
never let her suspect what had been done to her.” 

She shook her head to shake out the conjectures that 
distressed her. It was a pity she did put these ques- 
tions from her. Had she looked at them more closely she 
would have seen the incoherence in the story told her by 
Marianne. Then the same thought occurred to her which 
had presented itself to Jingles. Was it not possible that 
the marriage with the servant-maid had been a valid one, 
but that advantage had been taken of her ignorance to 
make her believe it was not, and so for Lord Lamerton to 
shake himself free from an encumbrance which had be- 
come irksome to him? But if this were the case, her own 
mother’s marriage would be of questionable legality, and 
with it would go her own — Arminell’s — legitimacy. A cold 
terror came over the girl at the thought. By all means 
Jingles must be induced to desist from investigating the 
matter and pressing his rights, if he had any. What a con- 
dition of affairs would ensue if the marriage of Marianne 
were a real one. Why the present Lady Lamerton would 
not be a proper wife, nor little Giles legitimate any more 
than herself. 

Arminell was young, had no practical knowledge of the 
world, and her imagination had been fed by novels, not of 
the most wholesome quality. Such an incident, such a 
hideous entanglement involving so many was quite in accor- 
dance with romance, and the young are always expecting 
reality to take romantic lines, as the old are always mistrust- 
ing the romantic as the garb of falsehood. 

Arminell leaned her elbow on the music-stand, and her 
head in her palm. She felt faint and sick at the thought 
that had risen up in her. 

At that precise moment Giles Inglett Saltren came into 
the room. He had heard the sound of the piano, and he 


A.RMINELL. 


l8l 


knew that the girl spent an hour every morning in the music- 
room practising. She looked up, recovered her distracted 
thoughts, and resumed her mechanical play on the 
keys. 

“Do you want to speak to me?” she asked, as he took 
his place beside the grand piano, ready to turn over the 
leaves of her exercises. 

“ Yes ; what are you playing ? ” 

“I am practising, not playing anything of importance, 
anything consecutive, a reverie ; but one must hack every 
day, without it all execution goes out of the fingers. It is a 
pity that hacking with the tongue so many hours a day does 
not conduce to brilliancy of conversation.” 

“ I should like a few words with you,” said the tutor, “ if 
you can spare me the time. I wish to express my regret for 
having spoken last night. I ought not to have revealed the 
secret of my birth ; but it was burning in my heart, and 
flamed out at my mouth.” 

Arminell continued playing and said nothing. 

“ We must let the matter drop,” he said in a low tone. 
“ I will not presume again, if you will endeavour to forget.” 

“ How can I forget ? As well dash vitriol in my eyes, 
and say don’t allow them to smart.” 

He saw that there were tears on her face. 

“I am sincerely sorry,” he said, “I am heartily penitent. 
I see I have hurt you. My words were vitriol, and your 
eyes have overflowed.” 

“ Doubly do you hurt me now — in noticing what should 
have been left unobserved. I am crying over my dead re- 
spect for my father. I loved him in my own queer and 
wayward fashion, though there was little we had in common. 
I believed him to be upright and good, and now my faith is 
gone to pieces.” 

“We must make allowances,” said Jingles. “This hap- 
pened long ago — I am twenty-one — and Lord Lamerlon 


i8a 


ARMINELL. 


was at the time young, under thirty. In token of his regret 
he has done much for me.” 

“ I have been accustomed,” said Arminell, “to look up to 
my father, and I have been full of a certain family pride — 
not pride in rank and wealth and all that sort of thing, but 
pride in the honour and integrity which I believed had been 
ours always ; and now I find — ” she sobbed ; she could not 
finish her sentence. 

“I am very sorry. I shall ever reproach myself,” was 
the impotent remark of Jingles, but he did feel a sting of 
self-reproach. He had acted cruelly to kill a girl’s trust in 
her father. 

“ It cannot be helped,” she said, “ it is done. Well, I 
know all, my eyes are opened, I accept you as my half-brother. 
When my father married again he sacrificed half his father- 
hood in me, or so I felt it ; and now of that half that re- 
mained something has been taken from me. Very little of 
my dear papa remains now — only a shadow.” 

“ And I,” said Jingles, “ I am even in a worse plight than 
you, for I cannot love a father who has so wronged my 
mother.” After a long pause, during which he held and 
fluttered a page of ArminelPs music, he added, “What a for- 
lorn condition mine is. I am here by sufferance who ought 
to be here by right. Every one dins in my ears the great 
kindness which I have had shown me by his lordship, and 
yet I know that I am not receiving more than a fraction of 
the portion that should be mine. Her ladyship patronises 
me, Giles regards me as a hired tutor, the servants are barely 
civil, the guests either ignore me or cast gibes, as — ” he 
checked himself ; he was again recurring to the half-shaved 
French poodle, when in at the door, or French window that 
led from the terrace, came Lord Lamerton, fresh and 
cheery. 

“Saltren,” he said, “you here ! I am glad of that. The 
man I want ; do me a favour, my good fellow, and be the 


ARMINELL. 


183 

go-between ’twixt your father and me. Arminell, have you 
seen Giles this morning? He is better, dear rascal, and 
quite bright. What, doing drill on the keys? Saltren, I 
hope you will do your utmost endeavour with your father 
about his house. The company are in a quandary about it. 
We — I am a director, you know — we will give him a tip-top 
price, in fact, more than twice its value. The place is really 
not a pleasant one, and well deserves its chilly name. Ton 
my word, I believe it was the cold and damp situation that 
sowed in you the seeds of pulmonary disease. I sent 
Macduff down, but he could effect nothing. I believe, on 
my very soul, that there is no man on earth but yourself 
who can move your father. He is a stubborn man, eh, 
Saltren ? I would go myself and see him about it, but 
Macduff tells me your father is ruffled about the manganese. 
It is the deuce of a pity, but I cannot help myself. I wish 
he could be persuaded to sell. Why, Saltren, between you, 
me, and the piano, I believe if I chose to dispute your 
father’s right to Chillacot I could beat him. Macduff says 
that there has been some sort of acknowledgment made 
every year, there was no lease of any sort, and I am the 
lord of the manor — but I won’t do that. I won’t be harsh 
or seem so, not only because I have the utmost respect for 
the captain, such a good and thoroughly upright man, but 
above all, because he is your father, my boy. However, 
my dear Saltren, something must be done, we are in a fix. 
The company will be put to the greatest possible incon- 
venience and much expense that might be avoided, if it has 
to carry the line below. Your father — ” 

“ Seven,” muttered Jingles. 

“ I beg your pardon ? ” asked my lord, raising his eye- 
brows. 

“Nothing, my lord,” answered the young man. “I had 
no intention to interrupt. I was counting.” 

“Counting — oh, whilst my daughter played. She has 


i»4 


ARMINELL. 


given over strumming, so give over counting, please. You 
will do what I ask, will you not ? ” 

“ I will see him, my lord, as it is your pleasure.” 

“Use all your powers of persuasion. Tell him that I 
want to cut a new road, to find employment for the men ; 
and if the station be at Chillacot, the road must go there. 
If your father — ” 

“Eight,” whispered Jingles as an aside, and looked at 
Arminell. 

“If your father is reasonable, we will begin at once. 
You see how we are situated. I can understand his re- 
luctance to quit a house where he was born, and for which 
he has done so much ; but then, consider the price offered 
for it. This offer comes in most fitly now that the mine is 
abandoned. Your father — ” 

Again the tutor looked at Arminell. 

“Your father must Jeave, as there is no work for him of 
the kind he is accustomed to, and a nice little capital would 
be very serviceable.” 

“ I will go, my lord, at once,” said Jingles. 

“Thank you, Saltren, thank you. I have to be off to 
catch the 11.28 train.” 

He went out of the room through the window by which 
he had entered. 

“Did you hear?” asked the tutor, partly in scorn, partly 
in pain. “ Nine times at the least did he speak of the 
manganese captain as my father, although he knew perfectly 
all the while that I am not his son. Did you notice the 
pointed way in which he spoke? It was as though he 
suspected that I had got wind of the truth, and would em- 
phatically let me understand that he would never, never 
acknowledge it, emphatically bid me consider the mining 
captain as my father. But ” — ljis face darkened with anger 
— “I am by no means assured that we know the whole 
truth.” 


ARMINELL. 1 85 

Arminell shuddered. Jingles looked intently at her. and 
4aw that she divined his thoughts. 

“No,” said he calmly: “never fear that I will have the 
story published to the world. It would bring disgiace on 
too many persons. It would make my mother’s position 
now as the wife of Captain Saltren an equivocal one. To 
disclose the truth, whatever complexion the truth might be 
found to wear when examined, would cause incalculable 
misery. What I shall do, whither I shall turn, I cannot 
yet tell.” 

Arminell also had noticed the manner in which Lord 
Lamerton had spoken of the captain to the tutor as his 
father, and she also, with her preconceptions, thought it was 
pointedly so done. 

“ No,” said Jingles. “I shall have to leave this house, 
and I shall let his lordship know that I am not as blind as 
he would wish me to be. But what I shall do is as yet 
undetermined. I shall ask you to help me to come to a 
decision.” 


CHAPTER XX. 


HE BECOMES SOMEBODY. 

Arminell kept to herself that day. At lunch she had not 
much to say to her step-mother, and Lord Lamerton was 
out. Giles came down, and his mother talked to him and 
to the tutor, and seemed not to observe Arminell’s silence. 

The girl was unhappy. She had given way to a momen- 
tary weakness, or wave of regret at the thought of her 
father’s unworthiness, but the feeling predominating in her 
mind was indignation that her mother should have been left 
unacquainted with the previous conduct of my lord. She 
repeated to herself, “ Most certainly she never knew it, or 
she would never have married him, even if she knew that 
ceremony was worthless that had been performed over him 
and Marianne.” 

Arminell had idealised her mother. The girl had an 
affectionate heart, but she concentrated her affection on the 
memory of her mother. Ever since her father’s re-marriage 
there had brooded over her a sense of wrong done to the 
memory of the mother. How could my lord, after having 
loved such a woman, take to himself his present wife ? 

Arminell was by no means easy in mind about Jingles’ 
assurance that he would not speak. He had given the 
same assurance, as Mrs. Saltren had told her, to his mother, 
and had broken his promise. She resolved to exert her 


ARM I NELL. 1 87 

rowers or persuasion on him to deepen this determination 
to be silent. 

It was unfortunate that Lord Lamerton had not been 
able to cultivate more freely his daughter's society, but a 
nobleman has ten thousand calls on his time; he is pre- 
vented from living that close life of familiar association wi.h 
his children which is the privilege of those in an inferior 
station. He considered, and he was right in considering, 
that his country, his order, and his county had claims on 
him which must not be put aside. He was a poor orntor 
indeed, and rarely spoke in the House, but he conscienti- 
ously voted with his party. In town he and Lady Lamerton 
saw a good deal of society, not because they cared particu- 
larly for it, but because they considered it a duty to enter- 
tain and keep up relations with friends and connexions. In 
the country Lord Lamerton, as Arminell contemptuously 
said, was kept on the gallop between school prize-givings, 
petty sessional meetings, quarter sessions, political and 
charitable institutions. He sat on boards, occupied chairs 
wherever there were boards and chairs placed for him. 
Moreover, at Orleigh, after the London season, the house 
was full of acquaintances, who came to shoot, hunt, drive, 
and be amused ; and, with a house full of guests, Lord 
Lamerton had not opportunity for cultivating the society of 
his daughter. But he was a man full of kindness, and he 
made many attempts to gain her affection, and persuade her 
to be to him the close companion that a daughter often is 
to a father. These attempts had failed, chiefly because of 
the resentment she bore him for having married again. 
Had he remained a widower, and sought to associate her 
with him in his pursuits, it might have been otherwise; but, 
as he had looked elsewhere for a companion, she closed her 
heart in reserve against him. 

Lord Lamerton was fond of hunting, and in this Arminell 
did not accord with him. Her Girton governess had 


i88 


ARMINELL. 


scoffed at those who had nothing better to do or think of 
than the pursuit, over hedge and gate, of a creature hardiy 
bigger than a cat ; and the sneer had taken effect on the 
girl, and made her regard her father, because of his hunting, 
as somewhat grotesque and deficient in moral dignity. She 
could not accompany him when shooting, but she was out 
of sympathy with sport of this kind also. Her governess 
had spoken of those lords of creation who concentrated 
their vast intellects on the killing of a jacksnipe, and this 
remark stuck in her, as did the other about , fox-hunting. 
She regarded sportsmen as fools, more or less. I once knew 
a man who had a mole with three white hairs growing out of 
it, on his nose; and when I talked with him, one hemisphere 
of my brain was engaged in considering the mole, and 
asking how it came there — whether it had grown as he 
grew, or whether it had been of the same size when he was 
born, and whether his body had expanded and elongated 
about it ; why he did not disguise it with chalk or violet 
powder, or else darken the three white hairs with antimony ; 
whether he had consulted a surgeon concerning its removal, 
and, if so, why the surgeon had not removed it ? Was it 
the cork plugging an artery, so that the man would bleed 
to death were it to be cut away ? Why he, of all men, was 
afflicted with this mole — was it hereditary ? And if so, on 
which side did it come to him, on the paternal or maternal? 
And if it were a hereditary mole, whether it would be 
possible, by judicious crossing, to reduce and finally extir- 
pate it ? Then again, whether after long disappearance, in 
say three generations, the mole would declare itself in the 
fourth ? what the mole had to do with the doctrine of 
evolution ? whether the Anthropological Society had con- 
sidered this mole ? and other questions. Afterwards I did 
not know whether this man had blonde hair or swarthy, 
eyes brown or blue, an intellectual forehead or one retreat- 
ing, nose acquiline, retrousse, or sausage. Neither could I 


ARMINELL. 


I&9 

recall anything about his conversation — I could think of 
him only as the Man with the Mole, or, to be more exact, 
the Mole with the man. 

Now, it sometimes happens that we see a blemish in a 
man’s character, and that blemish entirely engrosses our 
attention, so that we cannot conceive of the man other than 
as the man with the blemish. He may have good, counter- 
balancing qualities, but of these we know nothing, we take 
no account, we see only the moral mole. 

Moreover, this habit of seeing moles, and marking nothing 
but moles grows on us. I quite remember how that for a 
twelvemonth after I had talked with my gentleman with 
the mole, I examined the nose of every one I met, explor- 
ing it for moles, and expecting to find them hid under 
disguises, powdered or patched over ; or to discover traces 
of the amputation of moles, suspicious, tell-tale scars, or 
else tokens that latent moles were on the eve of eruption, 
moles that had been hidden deep in the system which were 
unsuspected by nearest and dearest, gradually, stealthily, 
inexorably working into publicity ; and I began to calculate 
how long it would be before the suspected mole came to 
light. And I became radically convinced that all men had 
moles in their constitution — that is, all men but myself — 
and that all men therefore were to be mistrusted, and held 
at arms’ length, lesf their moles should eomn>unicate them- 
selves to us, after the manner of warts. 

Arminell had not indeed reached this stage, but she was 
in that condition in which she saw the faults of her father 
and step-mother, and the faults only. Unable to forgive 
him his second marriage, she was predisposed to judge 
unfairly and harshly all he did, and all he left undone. 

That one special reason for his re-marriage was his desire 
to provide her with a step-mother,, one who could guide 
and advise her, and counteract some of the mischief done 
by injudicious governesses, never for a moment occurred to 


190 


ARMINELL. 


he:-, and yet this had been the predominant motive in the 
mind of Lord Lamerton when he chose Lady Julia Chester- 
ton, She was a woman spoken of as clever and well-read, 
and kind-hearted. Clever, well-read, and kind-hearted, he 
had found her, and yet deficient in the very quality necessary 
for commanding Arminell’s respect, and that was decision. 
Lady Julia, whatever Arminell might think, was an able 
woman, but her promiscuous reading had sapped the founda- 
tions of all independence of mind that she ever possessed, and 
had acted on her brain, as acids on osseous matter — reducing 
it to jelly. She was ever building with head, and hands, 
and heart, an indefatigable builder, but always on no foun- 
dations at all, because she argued that solid rock was no 
where discoverable, and sand was liable to shift, therefore 
she would erect her structures in the air, on nothing. 

Lord Lamerton had been disappointed at the result, but 
had no idea as to the cause of failure. And now, upon a 
mind in antagonism, this disclosure made by Mrs. Saltren 
came, and brought Arminell’s antagonism to a climax. 

The tears which young Saltren had surprised were the sole 
tribute of her filial affection. When they were dried only 
hostility remained. 

Some while ago, Messrs. Pears published an advertise* 
ment of their soap, on which were a green spot and another 
red, and the curious were invited to study one spot at a 
time, and then look at a blank wall. When this was done, 
he who had contemplated the red spot, saw a green disc 
dance before his eyes ; but if, on the other hand, he had 
looked long on the green spot, he saw before him only a red 
ball. It is so with a good many people ; and it was so with 
Arminell. Whenever Lord or Lady Lamerton wished her 
to see this or that, to take such a view of some particular 
matter, she invariably saw the complementary colour, that is 
the reverse of what she was desired to see. 

I, who write this, am ashamed to confess that I do the 


ARMINELL. 


191 

same, and I am not sure that, occasionally, you, my dear 
reader, may also do the same — now and then, of course : 
only when the wind is easterly, and the liver is out of order, 
or the next morning after a ball. I know that when I have 
read the Saturday Review , I rise from the perusal believing 
in Mr. Gladstone, and ready to follow him to the bottom of 
the Red Sea, or wherever else he desires to lead us ; and 
that when I have read the Pall-Mall Gazette , I am eager to 
drive my wife and daughters into the Primrose League. 
Also, I am quite sure that when some person has been 
warmly lauded in your hearing, dear reader, you take a low 
view of that individual, and when another has been much 
disparaged, you take up the cudgels to defend him, though 
he or she is an absolute stranger to you, and one of whom 
you have never heard before. I never recommend a water- 
ing-place to my friend, sure, if he goes there, he will call it 
a beastly hole, or dissuade him from buying a horse, by de- 
tailing its faults, so certain am I that my words will make 
him purchase the brute. 

In the afternoon of the same day, as the sun was warm, 
and the air was soft, Saltren took little Giles upon the ter- 
race, and Arminell, who saw them from her window, 
descended, and joined them there. She was uneasy and 
impatient to know what the tutor intended doing. Would 
he come to a full understanding with Lord Lamerton, and 
would my lord agree to provide for him, if he would depart 
and keep the secret of his birth undisclosed ? Or would 
Jingles in London discover sufficient to make him suspect 
that his mother’s marriage was valid, and be carried away 
by ambition to establish his legitimacy at all costs to 
others ? 

At the same moment that Arminell came out on the ter- 
race, the rector’s wife, Mrs. Cribbage, drove up in her 
wickerwork pony-carriage, and entered the house to pay a 
visit to Lady Lamerton. 


192 


ARMINELL. 


Giles ran off to see his rabbits, and Jingles was left alone 
walking with Arminell. 

“ I suppose you are not burdening Giles with many 
lessons, now that he is convalescent ? ” said the girl. 

“ No, her ladyship does not wish him to be pressed. He 
is still heavy in his head with cold.” 

“ Well,” said Arminell, “ I did not come here to talk 
about Giles, so we will dismiss him from our conversation. 
I have been considering this miserable matter, and I want 
to know what action you purpose taking on it.” 

“ I also,” said the tutor, “ have been revolving the matter 
in my head, and I have resolved to leave Orleigh as soon as 
possible, and to ask my uncle, Mr. James Welsh, my mother’s 
brother, to assist me to enter a literary career.” 

“ Literary career ! in what branch ?” 

“ I intend to write for the press, I mean for the papers. 
Mr. Welsh lives hy his profession, and I will do the same.” 

“That must be more interesting than teaching little boys 
Mensa — mensse, Dominus — domini.” 

“ The press is the sceptre that now rules the world, and I 
will wield it.” • 

“ Oh, how I envy you ! ” said Arminell. “ You are about 
to do something, something worth the labour, something the 
thought of which kindles ambition. You will escape out of 
this wearisome round of hum-drum into the world of heroic 
action. Here is my lord spending his life in petty duties as 
he regards them, and has no result at the end to show ; my 
lady thinking, planning, executing, and also with no result 
appearing ; and I, wasting my time practising at the piano, 
running my voice over scales, doing a little sketching, read- 
ng odds and ends, picking flowers — and nothing can come 
of it all. We are made for more serious work.” 

“I believe,” said Jingles, “that the writer of leaders ex- 
ercises more power, because he appeals to a wider circle, 
than even the member of Parliament. One out of every 


ARMINELL. 


193 


twenty who takes up a paper, reads the speeches, but every 
one reads the leading articles. I believe that we stand at 
the beginning of a great social revolution, not in England 
only, but throughout the civilized world, and I have long 
desired to take part in it, I mean in directing it. I do not 
hold the extreme opinions of some, but I have my opinions, 
no, that is not the word, convictions, bred in me by my 
perception of the inequalities, injustices, and unrealities of 
life as it is now organised.” 

“ And you will work for your uncle ? ” 

“ I do not altogether hold with him,” said Jingles. “ He 
takes too commercial an aspect of the mission imposed on 
a man with his power and faculties reaching the ear of the 
people.” 

“ Do you intend to live with him ? ” 

“ I cannot tell. I have decided on nothing as to the 
particulars. I have sketched out the broad features of my 
future career.” 

“ And,” — Arminell’s voice faltered — “ my father ? ” 

“ I will write to him after I am in town, informing him 
that I know all, and that, therefore, it was not possible for 
me, with self-respect, to remain in his house.” 

Arminell looked down on the gravel. 

“ You will not go into this matter, not have my mother’s 
name brought in question ? ” 

“ I will do nothing that can cause you a moment’s pain,” 
answered Jingles patronisingly. 

“ I shall be very solitary,” she said. “ More so than be- 
fore. With you I can talk about matters of, real interest, 
matters above the twaddle of common talk — Yes ?” 

This was addressed to the footman who appeared on the 
terrace and approached. 

“ What is it, Matthews ? ” 

My lady says, miss, that she will be glad if you could 
make it convenient to step into the parlour.” 

N 


194 


ARMINELL. 


“ There,” said Arminell, when Matthews had withdrawn, 
“ so she stands between me and the light at all times. I 
shall be back directly. She wants me about the choice of 
some new patterns for covering the sofas and chairs, I dare 
say. Here comes Giles from his rabbits.” 

Arminell walked slowly to the drawing-room, with a frown 
of vexation on her brow. She never responded with alacrity 
to her step-mother’s calls. 

Mrs. Cribbage, the rector’s wife, saw at once that Ar- 
minell was in a bad humour, as she entered the room. 

“ I am sorry to interrupt you,” she said. “ It was my do- 
ing. Lady Lamerton and I were speaking about old 
Samuel Ceely, and I have just heard how you have inter- 
ested yourself about him.” 

“ I sent to ask you to come, dear,” said Lady Lamerton 
in her sweet, gentle tones, “ because Mrs. Cribbage has 
b^ eh telling me about the man. He is unobjectionable 
now, but he was a bit of a rake once.” 

“ He was a gamekeeper to the late Lord Lamerton, and 
to the dowager,” put in Mrs. Cri: bage, “ and was dismissed. 
I could find out all the particulars. I believe he sold the 
game, and besides, was esteemed not to have the best 
moral character. However, I know no particulars. I will 
now make a duty of enquiring, and finding them out. Of 
late years — except for snaring rabbits and laying night-lines 
— I believe he has been inoffensive.” 

“ We are all miserable sinners,” said Arminell, “ we were 
told so on Sunday ” 

“ You were not at church on Sunday,” interrupted Mrs. 
Cribbage. 

“ And,” continued Arminell, “ it is really satisfactory to 
know that poor Ceely is not an exception to that all- 
embracing rule, and that he has not the moral perfection 
which would make up for his physical short-comings.” 

Arminell could not endure the rector’s wife, and took no 


ARMINELL. 1 95 

pains to disguise her feelings. Lady Lamerton likewise 
disliked her, but was too sweet and ladylike to show it. 

Mrs. Cribbage was an indefatigable parish visitor. She 
worked the parish with the most conscientious ardour, con- 
sidering a week lost unless she had visited every house in 
it and had dispensed a few pious scriptural remarks, and 
picked up a pinch of gossip in each. She knew everything 
about every one in the place, and retailed" what she knew, 
especially if it were too unpleasant to retain. She did not 
give out much scandal in the cottages, but she pecked here 
and there after grains of information, and swallowed what 
she found. And the people, well aware of her liking, with 
that courtesy and readiness to oblige which characterises 
the English lower orders, brought out and strewed before 
her all the nasty, and ill-natured, and suspicious scraps of 
information they had hoarded in their houses. Mrs. Crib- 
bage carried away whatever she learned, and communicated 
it to her acquaintances in a circle superior to that where 
she gathered it, to the Macduffs, to the wives of the neigh- 
bouring parsons, to the curate, with caution to Lady 
Lamerton. She acted as a turbine w T heel that forces water 
up from a low level to houses on a height. She thus im- 
pelled a current of tittle-tattle from the deep places of 
society to those who lived above ; but in this particular 
she differed from the turbine, that forces up clean water, 
whereas, what Mrs. Cribbage pumped up was usually the 
reverse. 

Mrs. Cribbage was nettled by Arminell’s uncourteous 
tone, and. said: “What earning weather we have been 
having. I hope, Miss Inglett, that you enjoyed your Sun- 
day morning walk ? ” 

“ It was as delightful as the weather,” answered Arminell, 
well aware that there were claws in the velvet paw that 
stroked her. “ Would you wish to know where I went ? ” 

“ O, my dear Miss Inglett ! I know.” 


196 


ARMINELL. 


Then Mrs. Cribbage left, and when she was gone, Lady 
Lamerton said gently, “ You were too curt with that woman, 
dear. You should never forget your manners, never be 
rude to a visitor in your own house.” 

“ I am not an adept at concealment, as are others.” 

“The best screen against such a person is politeness.” 

“ She is like a snail, with eyes that she stretches forth to 
all parts of the parish. I hate her.” 

“ Arminell, your father has been putting prickly wire 
about on fences where cattle or pigs force their way. The 
beasts scratch themselves against the spikes, and after one 
or two experiences, learn to keep within bounds, and lose 
the desire to transgress. The Mrs. Cribbages — and there 
are yards of them — are the spiky wires of society, hedging 
us about, and keeping us in our proper places, odious in 
themselves, but useful, and a protection to us against 
ourselves.” 

“ Barbed or unbarbed, I would break through them.” 

“ No, my dear, you would only tear yourself to pieces 
on them, without hurting them ; they are galvanised, plated, 
incapable of feeling, but they can inflict, and it is their 
mission to inflict an incredible amount of pain. You have 
already committed an indiscretion, and the crooked spike 
of the Cribbage tongue has caught you. Instead of going 
to church on Sunday morning, you walked in the road 
with Mr. Saltren. Of course, this was an act of mere 
thoughtlessness, but so is the first plunge of the calf against 
the prickly wire. Be more judicious, dear Armie, in the 
future. Where were you on Sunday afternoon ? ” 

“ Sitting with Giles and Mr. Saltren,” said Arminell, 
furious with anger and resentment, “ talking Sabbath talk. 
We discussed Noah’s ark.” 

“And this morning he went into the music-room to 
you. Your father told me he found him there turning over 
the leaves of your music, and counting time for you ; and 


ARMINELL. 


I 9 7 


now Mrs. Cribbage arrives and sees you walking with him 
on the terrace. My dear Armie, Jingles is a nobody, and 
these nobodies are just those whom it is unsafe to trifle 
with. They so speedily lose their balance, and presume.” 

“Mr. Saltren is not such a nobody as you suppose,” 
answered Arminell. “ He is a man of ability and inde- 
pendence of thought, he is one who will before long prove 
himself to be a somebody, indeed.” 

“My dear, he is a somebody already who has established 
himself as a nuisance.” 


CHAPTER XXI. 


DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

So. now, even this was denied Arminell, to talk with a 
rational man, the only rational man in the house, about the 
subjects that interested her. She must keep Mrs. Cribbage 
before her eyes, ever walk in daily fear of Mrs. Cribbage ; 
consider, before she did anything she liked, what would 
Mrs. Cribbage’s construction on it be. The opinion of 
Mrs. Cribbage was to be what she must strive to conciliate. 
All principle must be subordinated to the judgment of Mrs. 
Cribbage, all independence sacrificed to her. 

It is one of those pleasant delusions under which we 
live in England, that we have only God and the Queen to 
look up to and obey. As a matter of fact Mrs. Cribbage is 
absolute in heaven and earth, and the Divine law has no 
force, unless subscribed by Mrs. Cribbage. We fear God, 
because Mrs. Cribbage is His vicegerent, and has the triple 
crown and power of the keys, and in addition bears the 
sword. Resistance is powerless before the all-reaching 
power of Mrs. Cribbage. The Holy Vehm was nothing in 
its might to the judgment of Mrs. Cribbage. Her ministers 
are everywhere executing her orders, and none of the con- 
demned dare to remonstrate, or attempt escape. We may 
utter with impunity treasonable words against the Queen, 
and profess agnosticism towards God, but no one disputes 


ARMINELL. 


199 

the existence of Mrs. Cribbage and would not lick the dust 
under her feet. 

No one loves this autocrat, but there is not a Nihilist in 
her realm. 

Lady Lamerton had likened her to American barbed 
wire, and those who have dealings with Mrs. Cribbage 
touch her as I have seen porters handle a roll of spiked 
wire deposited on the railway platform, with caution, and 
impatience to consign it to its proper destination. And 
yet, though every one dreads, and some positively loathe 
Mrs. Cribbage, yet all agree that it would not be possible to 
live without her. She keeps society together as a paper- 
weight compacts all kinds of scraps of correspondence, and 
bills and notices. 

As long as young girls are in the nursery, and subject to 
governesses, they look forward to their coming out as to a 
time of emancipation. They have not reckoned on Mrs. 
Cribbage, who, as with a whoop they burst out of the 
school-room, confronts them and blocks their road. 

Arminell had done with her schooling, and properly 
ought to have come out that year, but the event had been 
postponed, as Lord Lamerton did not wish to go to town 
that year. She was free from governesses, and by no 
means inclined to lay her neck under the wheels of Mrs. 
Cribbage’s car. When my lord and my lady had gone to 
town during the season, Arminell and Giies had not 
attended'them. Giles was better in health in the country, 
with his pony, and his cricket, that is, with the tutor bow- 
ling to him, and the coachman’s son acting as long-stop ; 
accordingly, he was left at Orleigh to his great delight, and 
Arminell was left as well, with the governess, to continue 
her lessons, till she put off governesses and other childish 
things. Arminell had not therefore been brought much in 
contact with the world, and did not know the force of 
public opinion, she no more considered it than she con- 


200 


ARMINELL. 


sidered the pressure of the atmosphere. According to our 
best authorities, we - are subjected to the weight of fifteen 
pounds to each square -inch of surface, and a man of 
ordinary size sustains a pressure on him of some thirty- 
thousand pounds of air. I am a man of ordinary size, but 
I no more knew that I laboured under the burden of thirty- 
thousand pounds than I did that I was subjected to the 
pressure of about the same burden of Mrs. Cribbage who 
sits on my shoulders all day and squats on my chest all 
night, till I turned up the matter in an encyclopaedia. We 
no more think about the pressure of public opinion, L say, 
than we do about the pressure of the atmosphere. We 
make allowance for it, in all we undertake. 

If we ascend great heights we suffer because we are no 
longer subjected to the pressure ; our noses bleed, our 
breath comes short ; and if, by any chance, we get out of 
the region where public opinion weighs, we become alarmed, 
uneasy, gasp, and cry out to be brought back under its in- 
cubus once more. 

When Arminell had left the room, and closed the door 
behind her, she stood for a minute, resting the fingers of her 
left hand on the lock. 

Should she obey her step-mother or defy her ? She had 
promised young Saltren to return to the terrace. She 
wanted to have further talk with him. Why should she 
submit to the dictation of Lady Lamerton who was in- 
fluenced by the hints of that detestable Mrs. Cribbage? If 
Lady Lamerton were allowed her own way in small matters, 
she would presume to dictate in those which were large, and 
Arminell would be allowed no will of her own. In her 
heart, the girl admitted that her step-mother had reason to 
reproach her. If Jingles were only the tutor, and the son 
of the mining captain, he was, as my lady said, a nobody, 
and it was unbecoming for her to frequent his society. In- 
deed, it was hardly decorous for her to be so much with 


ARMINELL. 


201 


him, were he any thing else but what she knew him to be, 
her brother. The possession of the knowledge of their 
relationship altered the aspect of her conduct radically, and 
justified it. Lady Lamerton, in her ignorance, interfered, 
and might be excused interfering, but she, Arminell, being 
better informed, was at liberty to act differently from what 
my lady advised. The young man was her brother, and what 
more delightful intercourse than that which subsists between 
brother and sister, when like-minded ? There had taken 
place no open rupture between her ladyship and Arminell 
as yet : but it was inevitable that one would come, and that 
shortly : perhaps, the girl argued, the sooner the better, that 
her step-mother might be made clearly to understand that 
she — Arminell — stood on her independence. 

The girl let go the handle of the drawing-room door, and 
with beating heart and heaving bosom, went deliberately 
out on the terrace and resumed her place at the side of 
Jingles. 

“ I have come,” she said, “ as I undertook. My lady has 
read me a lecture.” 

“ About what ? ” 

“About barbed wire, about Mrs. Cribbage. That crea- 
ture saw me walking with you, and remonstrated with 
mamma, I mean my step-mother, and my lady retailed the 
remonstrance, as in duty bound ; I am forsooth to be placed 
under Mrs. Cribbage, to have my feet strapped, compressed 
and distorted, like those of a Chinese lady, till I am unable 
to walk alone, and must lean on the shoulders of the Crib- 
bage and my lady. This sort of thing is intolerable to me. 
Oh, that I were a man, that I might run away, as you are 
going to do, and stamp, and stride, and dance, and use 
every muscle in my feet freely. I detest this strapping and 
pinching and crippling.” 

“I have felt the same,” said the young man. “And it 
has become unendurable to me. One must either submit 


202 


ARMINELL. 


or break away. The process must end in irremediable dis- 
tortion, and fatal deprivation of the power of walking inde- 
pendently. Your whole future, your character for good or 
evil, depends on your conduct now. If you fall back in 
your chair unable to resist — ” 

“ No, I will kick and kick, I will not be disabled from 
walking.” 

“ If you make a brief attempt to resist, and do not main- 
tain a stubborn and determined resistance, you will be 
cramped and crippled for life. As you put it, the whole 
social system of the upper classes is Chinese bandaging of 
the feet ; not only so, but it is Indian flattening of the skull. 
I have felt, and so have you, that in this house our heads 
are strapped between boards to give them the requisite 
shape, and our brains to be not allowed to excede the 
requisite measure.” 

“ What can I do ? I have no one but yourself to ad- 
vise me.” 

“ It will be impossible for you to escape the influences 
brought to bear on you, if you remain here ; the Cribbages, 
great and small, wili lie in wait till you are napping and then 
fall on you and bind you, and apply the laces to your feet, 
and the boards to your head.” 

“ But, whither could I go ? ” Arminell asked. She 
thought for a moment, and then said, “ If I went to my Aunt 
Herinione, it would be going from beneath the shower 
under the shoot. There never was a more formal, society- 
laced creature in the whole world than my aunt, Lady 
Hermione Flathead. Everything in her house, her talk, her 
manners, her mind, her piety, everything about her is con- 
ventional.” 

Lady Lamerton approached, with little spots of colour in 
her cheeks, holding a parasol. 

“My dear Arminell,” she said, “how can you be so in- 
considerate as to come out without a sunshade ? ” 


ARMINELL. 


203 


“You see,” said Arminell, turning contemptuously away 
and addressing the tutor ; “ everything is to order. I may 
not even take two steps without a parasol, in fine weather ; 
and in bad, without an umbrella. The hand must never be 
free.” 

“ I think, Mr. Saltren,” said Lady Lamerton, “ that it 
would be well if Giles went, indoors, and, now that he is 
better, learn a little Latin.” 

“ As your ladyship desires it, certainly,” answered the 
tutor. 

“ I am so glad, my dear,” said Lady Lamerton, “ that you 
have waited for me on* the terrace. I am sorry to have 
detained you one minute, but I was looking out the address 
of those Straceys. I will take your arm and we will look 
at the pansies.” 

“Step-mothers, the Germans call them,” said Arminell. 
“I do not admire pansies.” 

“ We call them pansies, from / ensee , dear, which means 
thought, kind thought, and fore-thought, which possibly, 
though not always acknowledged, is to be found in step- 
mothers.” 

Arminell tossed her head. 

“ The homely name for these same flowers,” continued 
Lady Lamerton, “ is hearts-ease, and I’m sure it is a mis- 
nomer, if hearts-ease be the equivalent for step-mother, 
especially when she has to do with a wayward step-daughter.” 

“ I think that step-mothers would find most hearts-ease, 
if they would turn their activity away from their step- 
daughters, and leave them alone.” 

“My conscience will not suffer me to do this,” answered 
Lady Lamerton without losing her temper. “You may not 
acknowledge my authority, and you may hold cheap my in- 
tellectual powers and acquirements, but, after all, Armie, 1 
am in authority, and I do not think I am quite a fool. I 
can, and I must, warn you against dashing yourself againsi 


204 


ARM I NELL. 


the barbed wire. My dear, if we would listen to others, we 
would save ourselves many a tear and bitter experience. I 
love you too well, and your dear father too well, to leave 
you uncautioned when I see you doing what is foolish and 
dangerous.” 

“ But do you not know that experience is the one thing 
that must be bought, and cannot be accepted as a gift ? ” 

“ I beg your pardon. Our whole system of social culture is 
built upon experience accepted and not bought. It is not the 
Catholics alone who hold by tradition, we all do it, or are 
barbarians. Progress without it is impracticable. We start 
from the accumulated experience of the past, handed on to 
us by the traditions of our fathers. If everyone began by 
rejecting the acquisitions of the past, advance would be 
limited to the term of man’s natural life, for everyone would 
begin from the beginning ; whereas, each generation now 
starts where the last generation left off. It is like the hill of 
Hissarlik where there are cities superposed the one on the 
other, and each is an advance culturally and artistically 
on that below — above the Greek Ilium, below the Homeric 
Troy, under that the primeval hovel of the flint-chipper.” 

“ Each on the ruins of the other.” 

“ Each using up the material of the other, following the 
acquisitions of the earlier builders and pushing further on 
to structural perfection.” 

“ That may be true of material process,” said Arminell, 
“ but, morally, it is not true. Besides, our forefathers made 
blunders. I have been speaking with Mr. Saltren about the 
Flatheads and the Chinese who compress the heads and 
double up the feet of children. But our ancestors were 
nearly as stupid. Look at the monument of the first Lord 
Lamerton in the church. See the swaddled babies repre- 
sented on it, cross-gartered like Malvolio. Now we give 
freedom to our babies, let them stretch, and scramble, and 
sprawl. But you old ladies still treat us young girls as your 


ARMINELL. 


205 


great-grandmothers treated their babies. You swaddle us, 
and keep us swaddled all our life long. No wonder we 
resent it. The babies got emancipated, and so will we. I 
have heard both papa and you say that when you were 
children you were not allowed to draw nearer the fire than 
the margin of the rug. Was there sense in that ? Was the 
fire lighted to radiate its heat over an area circumscribed by 
the mat, and that the little prim mortals with blue noses 
and frosty fingers must shiver beyond the range of its warmth? 
We do not see it. We will step across the rug, and if we 
are cold, step inside the fender.” 

“ And set fire to your skirts ? ” 

“ We will go for warmth where it is to be found, and not 
keep aloof from it because of the vain traditions of the 
elders.” 

Lady Lamerton sighed. 

“Well, dear,” she said, “we will not argue the matter. 
To shift the subject, I hardly think it was showing much 
good feeling in you to come straight out here after I had 
expressed my wish that you would not. It was not what I 
may term — pretty.” 

“ I had promised Mr. Saltren to return to him and resume 
the thread of our interrupted conversation. Why did you 
send for me about old Ceely’s past history, as if I cared a 
straw for that ? ” 

“I sent for you, Armie, because you were walking with 
the tutor, and Mrs. Cribbage had observed it. She told 
me, also, that you*had been seen with him when you ought 
to have been at church.” 

“Well?” 

“ It was injudicious. She also said that you had been 
observed walking in the avenue last night with a gentleman; 
but I was able to assure her that the gentleman was your 
father.” 

“ This espionage is insufferable,” interrupted Arminell. 


20 6 


ARMINELL. 


“ I allow it is unpleasant, but we must be careful to give 
no occasion for ill-natured remark.” 

“ I can not. I will not be swaddled and have my feet 
crippled, and my head compressed, and then like a Chinese 
lady ask to be helped about by you and Mrs. Cribbage.” 

“Better that than by any one you may pick up.” 

“ I do not ask to be helped about by any one I may pick 
up. Besides, Mr. Saltren was not picked up by me, but by 
my father. He introduced him to the house, gave him to 
be the guide and companion of Giles, and therefore I cannot 
see why I may not cultivate his acquaintance, and, if I see 
fit, lean on him. I will not be swaddled, and passed about 
from arm to arm — baby eternal l ” 


CHAPTER XXII. 


TOO LATE 

Lady Lamerton said no more to Arminell, but waited till 
the return of his lordship, before dinner, and spoke to him 
on the matter. 

She was aware that any further exertion of authority would 
lead to no good. She was a kind woman who laboured to 
be on excellent terms with everybody, and who had discip- 
lined herself to the perpetual bearing of olive branches. 
She had done her utmost to gain Arminell’s goodwill, but 
had gone the wrong way to work. She had made conces- 
sion after concession, and this made her step-daughter regard 
her as wanting in spirit, and the grey foliage of Lady 
Lamerton’s olive boughs had become weariful in the eyes of 
the girl. 

If my lady had taken a firm course from the first, and had 
held consistently to it, Arminell might have disliked her, 
but would not have despised her. It does not succeed to 
buy off barbarians. Moreover, Arminell misconstrued her 
step-mother’s motives. She thought that my lady’s peace 
pledges were sham, that she endeavoured to beguile her into 
confidence, in order that she might establish a despotic 
authority over her. 

“ I do not know what to do with Armie ! ” sighed Lady 
lamerton. “We have had a passage of arms to-day, and 


208 


ARMINELL. 


she has shaken her glove in my face. Another word from 
me, and she would have thrown it at my feet.” 

She said no more, as she was afraid of saying too much, 
and she waited for her husband to speak. But, as he offered 
no remark, but looked annoyed, she continued, “ I am sorry 
to speak to you. I know that I am in fault. I ought to 
have won her heart, and with it her cheerful respect, but I 
have not. It is now too late for me to alter my conduct. 
Arminell was a girl of sense when I came here, and it really 
seems disgraceful that at my age I should have been unable 
to win the child, or master her. But I have failed, and I 
acknowledge the failure frankly, without knowing what to 
suggest as a remedy to the mischief done. I accept all the 
blame you may be inclined to lay on me — ” 

Lord Lamerton went up to his wife, took her face between 
his hands, and kissed her. 

“ Little woman, I lay no blame on you.” 

“ Well, dear, then I do on myself. I told you last night 
how I accounted for it. One can look back and see one’s 
faults, but looking forward one is still in ignorance what 
road to pursue. It really seems to me, Lamerton, that on 
life’s way all the direction posts are painted so as to show us 
where we have diverged from the right way and not whither 
we are to go.” 

“ Julia, I exercise as little control over Armie as yourself. 
It is a painful confession for a father to make, that he has 
not won the respect of his child — of his daughter, I mean : 
as for Giles — dear monkey — ” his voice softened and had a 
slight shake in it. 

“ And I am sure,” said Lady Lamerton, putting her arms 
round his neck, and drawing his' fresh red cheek to her lips, 
“ that there is nothing, nothing whatever in you to make her 
lack the proper regard.” 

“ I will tell you what it is,” said Lord Lamerton, “ Armie is 
young, and believes in heroes. We are both of us too ordi- 


ARM I NELL. 


209 


nary in our ways, in our ideas, in our submission to the 
social laws, in our arm-in-arm plod along the road of duty, 
to satisfy her. She wants some one with great ideas to guide 
her ; with high-flown sentiment ; to such an one alone will 
she look up. She is young, this will wear off, and she will 
sober down, and come to regard hum-drum life with 
respect.” 

“ In the meantime much folly may be perpetrated,” said 
Lady Lamerton sadly. “ Do look how much has been 
spent in the restoration of Orleigh. You have undone all 
that your grandfather had done. He overlaid the stone with 
stucco, and knocked out the mullions of the windows for the 
insertion of sashes, and painted over drab all the oak that 
was not cut away. So are we in later years restoring the 
mistakes made in ourselves, perhaps by our parents in our 
bringing up, but certainly, also, by our own folly and bad 
taste in youth. And well for us if there is still solid stone to 
be cleared of plaster, and rich old oak to be cleared of the 
paint that obscures it. What I dread is lest the iconoclastic 
spirit should be so strong in the girl that she may hack and 
tear down in her violent passion for change what can never 
be recovered and re-erected.” 

“ She is not without principle.” 

“ She mistakes her caprices for principles. Her own will 
is the ruling motive of all her actions, she has no external 
canon to which she regulates her actions and submits her will.” 

“ What caprice has she got now ? ” 

“ She has taken a violent fancy to the society of young 
Saltren.” 

“ Oh ! he is harmless.” 

“ I am not so certain of that He is morbid and 
discontented.” 

“ Discontented ! About what? Faith — he must be hard 
to please then. Everything has been done for him that 
could be done.” 


o 


210 


ARMINELL. 


“ Possibly for that reason he is discontented. Some men 
like to make their own fortunes, not to have them made for 
them. You have, in my opinion, done too much for the 
young fellow.” 

“ He was consumptive and would certainly have died, 
had I not sent him abroad.” 

“ Yes — but after that ? ” 

“Then he was unfit for manual labour, and he was an 
intelligent lad, refined, and delicate still. So I had him 
educated.” 

“ Are you sure he is grateful for what you have done for 
him ? ” 

Lord Lamerton shrugged his shoulders. “ I never gave 
a thought to that. I suppose so.” 

“ I am not sure that he is. Look at children, they accept 
as their due everything given them, all care shown them, and 
pay no regard to the sacrifices made for them. There is 
no conscious gratitude in children. I should not be sur- 
prised if it were the same with young Saltren. I do not 
altogether trust him. There is a something in him I do 
not like. He does his duty by Giles. He is respectful to 
you and me — and yet — I have no confidence in him.” 

“Julia,” said Lord Lamerton with a L ugh, “ I know what 
it is, you mistrust him because he is not a gentleman by birth.” 

“Not at all,” answered his wife, warmly. “Though I 
grant that there is a better guarantee for a man of birth 
conducting himself properly in a place of trust, because he 
has deposited such stakes. Even if he have not principle 
in himself, he will not act as if he had none, for fear of 
losing caste. Whereas one with no connections about him 
to hold him in check will only act aright if he have prin- 
ciple. But we have gone from our topic, which was, not 
Jingles, but Arminell. I want to speak about her, and 
about him only so far as he influences her for good or bad. 
I will tell you my cause of uneasiness.” 


ARMINELL. 


21 I 


Then she related to her husband what she knew about 
the Sunday walk in the morning, and the Sunday talk in 
the afternoon, and the music-room meeting on the follow- 
ing morning. 

“ Oh ! ” said his lordship, “ he only went there to turn 
over the pages of her music.” 

“ You see nothing in that ? ” 

“ ’Pon my soul, no. ? ’ 

“Then I must tell you about her conduct this afternoon, 
when she disobeyed me in a marked, and — I am sorry to 
use the expression — offensive manner.” 

“ That I will not tolerate. I can not suffer her to be 
insolent to you.” 

“ For pity’s sake do not interfere. You will make matters 
worse. She will hate me for having informed you of what 
occurred. No — take some other course.” 

“ What course ? ” x 

“ Will it not be well to get rid of Saltren ? And till he 
has departed, let Arminell go to Lady Hermione Wood- 
head.” 

Within parenthesis be it said that Woodhead was Aunt 
Hermione’s real name, only in scorn, and to signify her 
contraction of mind had Arminell called her Flathead, after 
the tribe of Indians which affects the compression of infants’ 
skulls. 

“ I cannot dismiss him at a moment’s notice, like a 
servant who has misconducted himself. I’ll be bound it is 
not his fault — it is Armie’s.” 

“ Let Arminell go to her aunt’s at once.” 

“ By all means. I’ll have a talk with Saltren.” 

“ Not a word about Arminell to him.” 

“ Of course not, Julia. Now, my dear, it is time for me 
to dress for dinner.” 

Dinner passed with restraint on all sides. Lord Lamer- 
ton was uncomfortable because he felt he must speak to 


212 


ARMINELL. 


Arminell, and must give his conge to the tutor. Arminell 
was in an irritable frame of mind, suspecting that something 
was brewing, and Lady Lamerton was uneasy because she saw 
that her husband was disturbed in his usually placid manner. 

After dinner, Lord Lamerton said to his daughter as she 
was leaving the room, “ Armie, dear, are you going into the 
avenue ? If so, I shall be glad of your company, as I in- 
tend to go there with a cigar presently.” 

“ If you wish it, papa ; but — Mrs. Cribbage heard that 
you and I had been walking there last night, and it meets 
with her disapproval. May James first run to the rectory 
with our compliments and ask Mrs. Cribbage’s kind per- 
mission ? ” 

She looked, as she spoke, at her step-mother, and there 
was defiance in her eye. 

“ Nonsense, dear,” said her father. “ I shall be out there 
in ten minutes. Will you have a whitewash, Saltren, and 
then I will leave for my cigar ? You are not much of a 
wine-drinker, I am glad, however, you are not a teetotaller 
like your father.” 

Again a reference to the captain. Jingles looked to- 
wards the door, and caught Arminell’s eye as she went 
through. She also had heard the reference, and under- 
stood it, as did the tutor. Certainly his lordship was very 
determined to have the past buried, and to refuse all 
paternity in the young fellow. 

“ Very well,” said the girl to herself, “ I will let my 
father understand that I know more than he supposes. He 
has no right to shelve his responsibilities. If a man has 
done wrong, let him be manful, and bear the consequences. 
I would do so. I would be ashamed not to do so.” 

She set her teeth, and her step was firm. She threw a 
light shawl over her head and shoulders and went into the 
avenue, where she paced with a rebellious, beating heart a 
few minutes alone, till her father joined her. 


ARMINELL. 


2I 3 


" I know, papa, what you want ; or rather what you have . 
been driven to. My lady has been peaching of me, and 
has constituted you her executioner.” 

“ Arminell, I dislike this tone. You forget that courtesy 
which is due to a father.” 

“ Exacted of a father,” corrected the girl. 

“ And due to him as a father,” said Lord Lamerton 
gravely. His cigar was out. He struck a fusee and 
lighted it again. His hand was not steady ; Arminell looked 
in his face, illumined by the fusee, and her heart relented. 
That was a good, kind face, a guileless face, very honest, 
and she could see by the flare of the match that it was 
troubled. But her perverse mood gained the upper hand 
again in a moment. She possessed the feminine instinct in 
dealing with men, when threatened, to attack, not wait to 
be attacked. 

“ I do not think it fair, papa, that my lady should hide 
herself behind you, and thrust you forward, as besiegers 
attack a fortress, from behind a screen.” 

“ You are utterly mistaken, Arminell, if you imagine that 
your mother — your step-mother — has intentions of attacking 
you. Her heart overflows with kindness towards you, 
the warmest kindness.” 

“ Papa, when Vesuvius is in eruption, the villagers in 
proximity pray to heaven to divert into the sea, anywhere 
but towards them, the warm gush of incandescent lava.” 

“Arminell,” said her father, “you pain me inexpressibly. 

I suppose that it is inevitable that a daughter by a first wife 
should not agree thoroughly with her father’s second choice ; 
but, ’pon my soul, I can see no occasion for you to take up 
arms against your step-mother ; she has been too forbearing 
with you. She is the kindest, most considerate and con- 
scientious of women.” 

“You may spare me the enumeration of her good 
qualities, papa : I am sure she is a paragon in your eyes, 


214 


ARMINELL. 


and I would not disturb the happy conviction. I suppose 
marriage is much like the transfusion of blood practised by 
the renaissance physicians. An injection of rabbit’s blood 
into the arm of a turbulent man made him sensible to fear, 
and one of lion’s blood into the arteries of a coward in 
fused heroism into his soul. When there was an interchange 
of blood between two individuals they came to think alike, 
feel alike, and act alike ; it is a happy condition. But as 
there has been no infusion of my lady’s blood into me — I 
think and feel and act quite differently from her.” 

“ We will leave her out of the question,” said Lord 
Lamerton, dropping his daughter’s arm which at first he had 
taken affectionately. “ Confound it, my cigar is out again, 
the tobacco must be bad. I will not trouble to relight it.” 

“ By all means let us leave my lady out of the question,’ 
said Arminell. “ I suppose I am not to be court-martialed 
for having discussed Noah’s Ark on Sunday with the tutor. 
I assure you we did not question the universality of the 
Flood, we talked only of the packing of the animals in the 
Ark.” 

“ Was there any necessity for Mr. Saltren to come to you 
in the music-room ? ” 

“No necessity whatever. He came for the pleasure of 
talking to me, not even to turn over my music leaves.” 

“You must not forget, my dear, who he is.” 

“ I do not, I assure you, papa, it is precisely that which 
makes me take such an interest in him.” 

“Well, my dear, I am glad of that; but you must not 
allow him to forget what is due to you. It will not do for 
you to encourage him. He is only a mining captain’s son.” 

“ Papa,” said Arminell, slowly and emphatically, “ I know 
very well whose son he is.” 

“ Of course you do ; all I say is, do not forget it. He is 
a nice fellow, has plenty of brains, and knows his place.” 

“Yes, papa,” said Arminell, “ he knows his place, and he 


ARMINELL. 


• ] 5 

knows how equivocal that place is. He is regarded as one 
thing, and he is another.” 

“ I daresay I made a mistake in bringing him here so 
near to his father.” 

“ So very near to his father, and yet so separated from 
him.” 

“I suppose so,” said Lord Lamerton, “ education does 
separate.” 

“ It separates so widely that those who are divided by it 
hardly regard each other as belonging to the same human 
family.” 

“ I daresay it is so ; the miners cannot judge me fairly 
about the manganese, because we stand on different educa- 
tional levels.” 

“ It is not only those beneath the line who misjudge 
those above ; it is sometimes the superiors who misunder- 
stand those below.” 

“Very possibly; but, my dear, that lower class, with 
limited culture and narrow views, is nowadays the domin- 
ating class. It is, in fact, the privileged class, it pays no 
taxes, and yet elects our rulers ; our class is politically 
swamped, we exist upon sufferance. Formerly the castle 
dominated the cottage, but now the cottages command the 
castle. We, the educated and wealthy, are maintained as 
parochial cows, to furnish the parishioners with milk, and 
when we run dry are cut up to be eaten, and our bones 
treated with sulphuric acid and given to the earth to dress 
it for mangel-wurzel.” 

Arminell was vexed at the crafty way in which, according 
to her view, her father shifted ground, when she approached 
too nearly the delicate secret. She wondered whether she 
had spoken plainly enough to let him understand how much 
she knew. It was not her desire to come to plain words, 
she would spare him that humiliation. It would be quite 
enough, it would answer her purpose fully to let him under- 


2l6 


ARMINELL. 


stand that she knew the real facts as to the relationship in 
which she stood to the tutor. 

“ Papa,” said Arminell, “Giles Inglett Saltren strikes me 
as standing towards us much in the same relation as do 
those apocryphal books the names of which my lady was 
teaching the children on Sunday. He is not canonical, of 
questionable origin, and to be passed over.” 

“ I do not understand you, Armie.” 

“ I am sorry, papa, that I do not see my way to express 
my meaning unenigmatically.” 

“ Armie, I have been talking to mamma about your pay- 
ing a visit to Aunt Hermione. You really ought to see the 
Academy this year, and, as mamma and I do not intend to 
go to town, it will be an opportunity for you.” 

“ Aunt Hermione ! ” — Arminell stood still. “ I don’t 
want to go to her. Why should I go ? I do not like her, 
and she detests me.” 

“ My dear, I wish it.’ 

“ What ? That I should see the Academy ? I can take 
a day ticket, run up, race through Burlington House, and 
come home the same evening.” 

“ No, my dear, I wish you to stay a couple of months at 
least, with Hermione.” 

“ I see — you want to put me off, out of the way of the 
tutor, so as to have no more talk, no more confidences with 
him. That is my lady’s scheme. It is too late, papa, do 
you understand me ? It is too late.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” 

“ What I say. This is locking the door after the horse 
is stolen. Send me away ! It will not alter matters one 
scrap. As I said before, the precautions have come too 
late.” 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


“from our own correspondent.” 

Suddenly, in the midst of his breakfast, Lord Lamerton 
uttered an exclamation and turned purple, and thrust his 
chair from the table. 

Lady Lamerton sprang from her seat. Arminell was 
alarmed. She had not seen her father in this condition be- 
fore ; was he threatened with apoplexy ? 

“ Look at it ! God bless my soul ! ” gasped his lordship. 
“ What confounded scoundrel has written it ? Look at it, 
Julia, it is monstrous.” 

He thrust a newspaper from him. 

“ It is in this damned Radical daily. Look at it, Julia ! 
Where is Macduff! I want Macduff. I’ll send for my 
solicitor. Confound their impudence, and the lies — the 
lies ! ” Lord Lamerton gasped for breath, then he went on 
again, “ From our Own Correspondent — who is he ? If I 
knew I would have him dragged through the horsepond ; 
the grooms and keepers would do it — delighted to do it — 
if I stood consequences. Here am I held up as a monster 
of injustice, to the scorn, the abhorrence of all right-minded 
men, because I have capriciously closed the manganese 
mine. There is a harrowing picture drawn of a hundred 
householders thrown out of work — and thrown out of work, 
it is suggested, because at the last election they voted 
Liberal ; I am depopulating Auburn — I am in a degree 


2l8 


ARMINELL. 


breaking up families. Not a word about the mine threat- 
ening my foundations — not a hint that I have lost a thou- 
sand pounds a year by it these five years. I am driving the 
trade out of the country ; and, as if that were not enough, 
here is a sketch of the sort of house in which I pig my 
tenants — Patience Kite’s tumble-down hovel at the old 
lime-quarry ! As if I were responsible for that, when she 
has it on lives, and we want to turn her out and repair it, 
and she won’t go. When we have condemned the house, 
and gone as far as the law will allow us ! Where is Mac- 
duff? I must see Macduff about this ; and then ” — his 
lordship nearly strangled, his throat swelled and he was ob- 
liged to loose his cravat — “and then there is a picture 
drawn in the liveliest colours of Saltren’s house — 1 beg your 
pardon, Saltren, this must cause you as much annoyance as 
it does myself — of Chillacot, in beautiful order, as it is ; 
Captain Saltren does right by whatever he has the care of — 
of Chillacot as an instance of a free holding, of a holding 
not under one of those leviathans, the great landlords of 
England. Look at this, then look at that — look at Patience 
Kite’s ruin and Captain Saltren’s villa ; there you have in a 
nutshell the difference between free land and land in bonds, 
under one of the ogres, the earth-eaters. God bless my 
soul, it is monstrous ; and it will all be believed, and I 
shall walk about pointed at as a tyrant, an enemy of the 
people, a disgrace to my country and my class. I don’t 
care whether she kicks and curses, I will take the 
law into my hands and at once have Mrs. Kite turned 
out, and her cottage pulled down or put in order. I 
suppose I dare not pull it down, or the papers will be 
down on me again. I will not have a cottage on my 
land described as this has been, and the blame laid on 
me ; the woman shall give up her lease. How came the 
fellow to see the cottage? He describes it accurately; 
it is true that the door has tumbled in ; it is true that the. 


ARMINELL. 


219 


chimney threatens to fall ; it is true that the staircase is all 
to pieces, but this is no fault of mine. He has talked to 
Mrs. Kite, but I am sure she never used the words he has 
put i ; 0 her mouth. Where is Macduff? I wish, my dear 
Saltren, you would find him and send him to me. By- 
the-way, have you spoken to .your father about — what was 
it ? Oh, yes, the sale of his house. Fortunate it is that a 
railway company, and not I, want Chillacot, or I should be 
represented as the rich man demanding the ewe lamb, as 
coveting Naboth’s vineyard, by this prophet of the press. 
Who the deuce is he? He must have been here and must 
know something of the place ; there is just so much of truth 
mixed up with the misrepresentations as to make the case 
look an honest one. I want Macduff. Have you seen 
your father about that matter of Chillacot, Saltren ? ” 

“ My lord,” said Jingles, “I am sorry I have not seen 
him yet. In fact, to tell the truth, I — I yesterday forgot 
the commission.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Lord Lamerton, now hot and irritable, “ oh 
don’t trouble yourself any more about it. I’ll send 
Matthews after Macduff. I’ll go down to Chillacot myself. 
Confound this correspondent. His impudence is amazing.” 

Lord Lamerton took most matters easily. The enig- 
matical words of his daughter, the preceding evening, in 
the avenue, had not made much impression on him. They 
were, he said, part of her rodomontade. But he repeated 
them to his wife, and to her they had a graver significance 
than he attributed to them. This article in the paper, how- 
ever, agitated him deeply, and he was very angry, morer 
angry than any one had seen him for several years ; and the 
last explosion was caused by the poisoning of some of his 
fox-hounds. 

“ Matthews, send James down after Mr. Macduff at 
once.” 

“ Yes, my lord.” 


220 


ARMINELL. 


“ And, Saltren, a word with you in the smoking-room il 
you can spare me the time.” 

“ I am at your service, my lord.” 

Lord Lamerton had been so excited by the article he had 
read that he was in a humour to find fault ; and, as Viola 
says, 

“ Like the haggard cheek at every feather 
That comes before his eye.” 

Such moods did not last long ; he was the slowest of 
men to be roused, and when angry, the most placable ; but 
an injustice angered him, and he had been unjustly treated 
in the article in that morning’s paper. 

There must be deep in our souls, some original sense of 
justice, for there is nothing so maddens a man and sweeps 
him in angry fever beyond the control of reason, as a sense 
of injustice done, not only to himself, but to another. It 
is the violation of this ineradicable sense of justice which 
provokes to the commission of the grossest injustice, for it 
blinds the eyes to all extenuations and qualifying circum- 
stances. It is an expansive and explosive gas that lies 
latent in every breast — in the most pure and crystalline, an 
infinite blessing to the world, but often infinitely mis- 
chievous. It is the moral dynamite in our composition. 

There is a hot well in Iceland called Strokr which 
bubbles and steams far below the surface, the most in- 
nocuous, apparently, of hot springs, and one that is even 
beneficial. But if a clod of turf be thrown down the gullet, 
Strokr holds his breath for a moment and is then resolved 
into a raging geyser, a volcano of scalding steam and 
water. I once let a flannel-shirt down by a fishing-line, 
thinking to wash it in the cauldron of Strokr, and Strokr 
resented the insult, and blew my shirt to threads, so that I 
never recovered of it — no, not a button. It is so with men, 
they are all Strokrs, witfy a fund of warmth in their hearts, 


ARMINELL. 


221 


and they grumble and fume, but, for all that, exhale much 
heat, and nourish flowers about them and pasture for sheep 
and pisses, but some slight wad of turf, or a dirty flannel- 
shirt — some trifling wrong done their sense of justice, — and 
they become raging geysers. 

Lord Lamerton was not so completely transformed as that, 
because culture imposes control on a man, but he was bub- 
bling and squirting. He was not angry with the tutor, 
personally, because he did not think that the young 
man was blameworthy. What indiscretion had been com- 
mitted, had . been committed by Arminell. With her he 
was angry, because her tone towards him and her behaviour 
to her step-mother were defiant. “ Saltren,” said he, when 
he reached the smoking-room and was alone with Jingles, 
“ do you think your uncle could have written that abomin- 
able article ? I did not mention my suspicion in the break- 
fast room, so as not to give you pain, or trouble the ladies, 
but, ’pon my soul, I do not see who else could have done 
it. I heard he had been down here on Sunday, and I 
hoped he had talked the matter of the line and Chillacot 
over with your father, and had given him sensible advice. 
Yet I can hardly think he would do such an ungracious, 
under the circumstances, such an immoral thing as write 
this, not merely with suppressio veri , which is in itself sug- 
gests falsi , but with the lies broadly and frankly put. 
Upon my word — I know Welsh is a Radical — I do not see 
who else could have done it.” 

“ I am afraid he has, though I cannot say. I did not see 
him, my lord,” said the tutor. 

“ I am sorry, really it is too bad, after all that has been 
done — no, 1 will say nothing about that. Confound it all, 
it is too bad. And what can I do? If I write a correction, 
will it be inserted? If inserted, will it not serve for a leader 
in which all I have admitted is exaggerated and distorted, 
and I am made to be doubly in the wrong ? And now, I 


222 


ARMINELL. 


suppose it is high time for Giles to go to school. I don’t 
want you to suppose that this idea of mine has risen in any 
way from this damned article, or has anything whatever to 
do with it, because it has not. I do not for one instant 
attribute to you any part in it. I know that it shocks you 
as it shocks me ; that you see how wrong it is, as I do. 
But, nevertheless, Giles must go to school ; his mother and 
I have talked it over, and between you and me, I don’t 
want the boy— dear monkey that he is — to be over-coddled 
at home. His mother is very fond of him, and gets alarmed 
if the least thing is the matter w r ith him, and fidgets and 
frets, and, in a word, the boy may get spoiled by his mother. 
A lad must learn to hold his own among others, to measure 
himself beside others, and, above all, to give way where it 
is courteous, as well as right to give way. A boy must 
learn that others have to be considered as well as himself, 
and there is no place 'like school for teaching a fellow that. 
So Giles must go to school. Poor little creature, I wonder 
how he will like it ? Cry at first, and then make up his 
mind to bear it. I do trust if he have his bad dreams the 
other chaps won’t bolster and lick him for squalling out at 
* night and rousing them. Poor monkey ! I hope they will 
make allowance for him. He is not very strong. Giles 
must go to school, and not be coddled here. His mother 
is absurdly fond of the little fellow. 1 don’t want to hurry 
you — Saltren, and you can always rely on me as ready to 
do my best for you, but I think you ought to look about 
you, at your leisure, you know, but still look about you. 
And, damn that article, don’t you have anything to do with 
Welsh, he will lead you, heaven alone knows whither.” 

“My lord,” said Saltren, “you forestall me. I myself 
was about to ask leave to depart. I have not the natural 
qualifications for a tutor ; I lack, perhaps, the necessary 
patience. I intend to embrace the literary profession. In- 
deed, I may almost say that I have secured a situation 


ARMINELL. 


223 


which will make me independent. Secured is, possibly, too 
decided a word — I have applied for one.” 

“I am glad to hear it, I am very glad. My lady said she 
thought you had a fancy for something else. But — don’t 
have anything to do with Welsh. He will carry you along 
the wrong course, along one where I could do nothing for 
you, and, I will always help you when I can.” 

“My lord, whenever you can, with convenience, spare, 
me — ” 

“ Spare you ! Oh don’t let us stand in your way. You 
have almost got a berth to get into ? ” 

“ I have applied for a place which I may almost say I can 
calculate on having. My only difficulty has been, that I did 
not know when I should be at liberty. If your lordship 
would kindly allow me to leave immediately ” 

“ My dear fellow, suit your own convenience. We can 
manage with Giles. The rector will give him an hour or 
two of Latin and Greek, till the term begins, when he can 
go to school. I don’t know that I won’t let the monkey run 
wild till the time comes for the tasks to begin.” 

“ Then, my lord, it is understood that I may go im- 
mediately ? ” 

“ Certainly.” 

Though Lord Lamerton gave his consent, he was a little 
surprised at the readiness of the tutor to leave Orleigh, and 
to throw up his situation before he had really secured an- 
other. There was something ungracious in his conduct 
after all the kindnesses he had received which jarred on his 
lordship’s feelings. He had a real liking for the young man, 
and he was desirous that he should do well for himself. He 
was unable to resist the temptation to say — “ You seem in 
a vast hurry to leave us, Saltren.” 

“I have reasons, my lord. Something has occurred 
which makes it imperative on me to leave this house im- 
mediately.” 


224 


ARMINELL. 


“ Do you refer to this article by our own correspon- 
dent ?” 

“ Not at all, my lord. It has no connection with that. 
Something, a distressing secret, has come to my knowledge, 
which forces me to quit Orleigh.” 

“ What the deuce is it ? ” 

“ I will probably write to you, my lord, about it when I am 
away.” * 

“ It is a secret then, between you and me, and — any one 
else?” 

“ It is a secret that concerns me most closely, and indeed, 
others beside me. But, no doubt, your lordship has divined 
to what I allude.” 

Lord Lamerton turned hot and cold. Now ArmineH’s 
mysterious words recurred to his memory. What had her 
meaning been? Was the tutor referring to the same 
matter? Had that headstrong girl thrown herself into his 
arms, protesting that she loved him ? Very likely. She 
was capable of doing such a thing. What else could she 
have meant ? What else could induce the young man to go 
precipitately ? 

Lord Lamerton hesitated a moment what to say, looking 
down, and knitting his brows. 

“ You have, my lord, I can see, guessed to what I refer. 
It is not a matter on which we can speak together. It would 
be too painful. Each of us would rather say nothing on a 
very distressing matter. Let what has passed suffice for the 
present. I am sure, my lord, that you can understand my 
motives in desiring to leave promptly.” 

“Ton my soul, I think I do. Dash it, I do ! ” 

“Then, my lcrd, you will not desire to retain me in 
Orleigh any longer ? ” 

“No — for God’s sake, go. I respect you. You are be- 
having aright. I am sorry, I am ashamed, but there, there, 
you are acting properly. I will not say another word. Go 


ARMINELL. 223 

where you like, and always look to me as your friend, nay, 
as taking almost a fatherly interest in you.” 

He held out his hand, caught that of young Saltren and 
pressed it, then left the room for his wife’s boudoir. 

“Julia,” said he, in an agitated tone, “things are worse 
than we imagined. I thought nothing of it, but you women 
have eyes where men are blind.” 

“ What has happened ? ” 

“Armie — good heavens! — Armie has orfereo herself to 
young Saltren, and he, like a gentleman, like a true, honour- 
able gentleman, has asked me to let him go, because he 
cannot remain here any longer, under the circumstances.” 

“ Did he tell you this ? ” 

“ Not in so many words, but there was no mistaking his 
meaning. Of course he felt a delicacy — he did not like to 
say how — but, there, there ! I shall be angry again. Ah, 
that girl ! Armie is well off, has her mother’s fortune ; he 
knows that, but was not to be dazzled. He sees what is 
right to be done, and does it. Hah ! There comes Mac- 
duff. I see him in the drive. I’ll have the masons at once, 
this morning, and tear down Patience Kite’s cottage.” 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


A HANDLE TO THE ENEMY. 

When Lord Lamerton decided that a thing was to be done, 
he liked to have it done at once, and now that he was 
thoroughly roused, he would brook no delay in the matter 
of Patience Kite’s cottage. 

Mrs. Kite had baffled the authorities. There was no 
question that her house was unfit to be inhabited by a 
human being, and that her life was not safe in it. A heavy 
gale might bring the roof and chimney down on her in her 
bed and bury her. The relieving officer had complained 
and remonstrated. The sanitary officer had viewed the 
ruin and had condemned it. Mr. Macduff had ordered 
Mrs. Kite to put the cottage in repair. She didn othing, 
and apparently nothing could be done with her. She ab- 
solutely refused to leave her cottage, and to put it in 
habitable condition was beyond he.r power. If this case 
had occurred anywhere in Europe except in England, the 
police would have made short work with Mrs. Kite, but in 
England, every man’s house is his castle, in whatever con- 
dition the house may be. Now, had a drain from Mrs. 
Kite’s hovel proved a nuisance to neighbours, she could 
have been dealt with, but she had no drains at all ; and her 
roof threatened no one but herself. The authorities had 
necessarily consumed much time over Mrs. Kite, and all to 
no purpose. The sanitary officer complained to the board 


aRMINELL. 


227 


of guardians a month after viewing and condemning the 
house. The guardians waited another month and then 
waited on the magistrates in petty sessions to issue an 
order to Mrs. Kite to vacate her cottage. The order was 
issued and served. Another month passed, and Mrs. Kite 
had not budged. At the next petty sessions enquiry was 
made whether any further steps could be taken. It ap- 
peared that Mrs. Kite was liable to a fine of ten shillings 
for every day she remained after the order had bfeen served, 
but, as the sergeant of police observed to the magistrates, 
all her goods, if sold, would not fetch ten shillings, and the 
clerk of the court could find no precedent for evicting the 
old woman ; all that could be done would be to sell her 
goods, but that was the limit of their power. 

She was, it was true, by her tenure, bound to keep the 
house in good order, and accordingly Lord Lamerton, as 
lord of the manor, demanded this, but she did nothing. It 
was true that he might, in the event of a tenant neglecting 
to fulfil the stipulation, order the repair, and distrain on the 
tenant for the costs. But Mrs. Kite was not worth dis- 
training, and the house was not worth rebuilding. No one, 
after the old woman’s death, would care to live in such a 
lonely spot. To rebuild, would cost a hundred and fifty 
or two hundred pounds. However, rather than that the 
scandal should continue, Lord Lamerton resolved to re- 
build, when he learned that legally he might not pull down 
without rebuilding. So Mrs. Kite was about to put his 
lordship to the cost of nearly two hundred pounds to save 
her life in her own despite. We have odd ways of doing 
things in Phngland.* 

The news that Mrs. Kite’s house was to be pulled about 
her ears rapidly spread through the village, and many people 

* As already said, this is an actual case. The magistrates’ order 
was issued in February 1887, and has been defied to present date, 
September 1889, 


228 


ARMINELL. 


assembled to see the ejection of the hag and the demolition 
of roof and chimney. 

Mrs. Kite was a personage not a little dreaded ; she was 
what is called a wise-woman ; she was consulted when any 
of the cottagers were ill. The medical man was sent for 
reluctantly, and little trust was put in his medicines, but the 
wise-woman enjoyed the fullest confidence. To meddle 
with her was a dangerous matter. She used her powers for 
good, but *it was quite possible for her to employ them 
otherwise. No one cared to provoke her. Every one de- 
sired to stand on good terms with her. Before the rector 
and Mrs. Cribbage, and my lady and the Macduff’s, the 
villagers spoke disparagingly of Patience Kite, but among 
themselves they regarded her with respect. 

Some ill would come of this action of Lord Lamerton, 
they argued ; he might be a great man, but there are things 
with which the greatest cannot cope. Ill would come 
of it ; how, no one could say, but somehow, all agreed, it 
would come. Had not Patience’s uncle beaten her when 
she was a child, and his house had been burnt down? 
True, folks said that Patience had fired it, and true it was 
she had been sent to prison on that account ; but it was 
said she had done it only because they could not otherwise 
account for the fire. There was Farmer Worth called her 
an ugly name once, when she asked for skimmed milk, and 
sure enough his cows had dropped their calves after till he 
got a goat to run along with them. Moreover, the villagers 
argued, why should a woman be ejected from her house? 
Her father had built the cottage, and it was on three lives, 
his, his wife’s and child’s, and now it was Patience’s as long 
as the breath was in her. If she chose to keep it in bad 
repair that was her look-out. Because a woman wore rags, 
was that a reason why Lord Lamerton and Mr. Macduff 
should pull her gown off her back ? Because she had a 
bad tooth or two in her head, had they any right to knock 


ARMINELL. 


229 


out all the sound teeth in her jaw ? Because she Uad not 
patent-leather dancing-pumps, was she to be forced to go 
barefoot? Because she didn’t keep her hair over tidy, was 
that a reason why she should have her head shaved ? Lord 
Lamerton had no right to interfere. England is a free 
country, in which folks may act as they like, and live as 
they like, so long as they do not interfere with their neigh- 
bours, and Mrs. Kite had no neighbours. Her cottage was 
not within sight of Orleigh Park — it did his lordship no 
injury. Did Mrs. Kite’s kitchen chimney threaten to fall 
on Lord Lamerton’s head? Folks, even lords, have no 
right to interfere with those who don’t interfere with them. 

Popular sympathy went altogether with Patience Kite. 
Perhaps at another time the villagers would have been more 
disposed to judge reasonably, but at this juncture they were 
smarting under the sense of wrong caused by the closing of 
the manganese mine, and were therefore disposed to make 
common cause with any one against whom his lordship 
acted with apparent rigour. 

When Macduff and his workmen came to the hovel, they 
found a number of sympathisers assembled, mostly miners 
out of work and some women. 

Outside the cottage sat Thomasine. She had been sent 
back to her mother from Court farm because of her sprained 
ankle, which incapacitated her for work. Archelaus Tubb 
was there also. He, likewise, was out of work — not an un- 
usual condition with him, for he was a bad workman what- 
ever he took up, and got his dismissal wherever he went. 
The girl was pouting; she had her hands folded in her lap, 
and her brows bent. She looked wonderfully handsome, 
with a dash of savagery in her beauty. 

Within the house was Mrs. Kite. She had put together 
her few valuables in an oak chest, and sat on it, near her 
hearth, with her feet on the hearthstone, and her arms 
folded. She would not move. The house might be dis- 


230 


ARM I NELL. 


mantled about her, but there she would remain to the 
last. 

Mr. Macduff entered the cottage, and received a scowl 
from Thomasine as he passed her. He endeavoured, but 
in vain, to persuade the woman to come outside. 

“But,” said Mr. Macduff, “they’re about to pu’ the roof 
down over your head.” 

Mrs. Kite made no answer. 

Then he became angry, and ordered two masons to enter 
the ruin and remove the old woman ; but this they were 
afraid to do. They pretended that the reason was lest she 
should bring an action against them ; really, lest she should 
“overlook” them ; that is, cast an evil eye upon them. 

“I’ll give half a sovereign to any who will bring her out,” 
offered the agent. 

The men shrugged their shoulders, and a miner who was 
lounging against a tree in the rear muttered, “If you’re so 
anxious to get her out, you and his lordship' had be^t drag 
her out yourselves.” 

“ Begin with the demolition,” ordered Macduff. 

The workmen scrambled on the roof, and commenced 
tearing off the old, thin and rotten thatch, beginning at the 
end furthest removed from that where the old woman sat. 

A few groans and exclamations of “ shame ! ” issued from 
the lookers-on. 

As the thatch was being riven away, plaster from the 
rotten ceiling fell, and with it drifts of straw, into the cottage. 
Dust rose, thick and blinding, but Mrs. Kite refused to stir. 
She would stifle there rather than desert her hearth. 

Again Macduff went to the door to expostulate. The 
woman answered with a snarl, as a wild beast worried in its 
lair. 

“ Go on,” shouted Macduff to the men. 

Then suddenly a tie-beam gave w T ay, and fell through 
with a crash, to the cottage floor. 


ARMINELL. 


23I 


Immediately ensued a rush of lookers-on to the cottage 
door and windows, but the dust drave out in their faces, 
thick as steam, preventing them from seeing anything. But, 
though Patience could not be seen, her voice was heard 
muttering behind the fog of lime and dust of rotten wood. 

Macduff did not relish his task. Lord Lamerton was not 
present; he had gone to a ploughing match, where he was 
to distribute the prizes. If my lord had been at home, the 
agent would have asked for further directions ; but, as he 
was away, he felt bound to proceed according to his 
orders. 

The workmen engaged on the roof now discovered that 
their lunch hour had arrived, and they descended the 
ladders with alacrity to regale themselves on the cake and 
cold tea they had brought with them. 

The pause allowed the dust to dear away, and Macduff, 
looking through the doorway, descried Mrs. Kite, powdered 
with lime, her hair almost white, still crouched on her box 
in the same place, resting her chin in her hands, and her 
elbows on her knees. 

What was he to do? He bit his lips, and swore in broaa 
Scotch. The masons were eating and joking among them- 
selves. The miners were muttering. 

Leisurely — before Macduff had decided on a course, and 
reluctantly, the masons refolded their bundles, and returned 
to the ladders. 

“ Rip off the straw,” said the agent, “ but be varry careful 
not to disturb the principals. If the old creature finds she 
has nae cover o’er her head when the rain comes, maybe 
she’ll depart of her own accord.” 

The stripping off of the thatch was resumed, and the 
dust fell thicker over the part of the room where Mrs. Kite 
sat ; it poured out of every opening, it rose from where the 
roof had been torn ; the cottage resembled a smoking dung- 
hill, and the cloud spread over and enveloped the whole 


232 


ARMINELL. 


clearing, powdering grass and bushes, and the coats and 
boots of the spectators. 

All at once, a shout from a mason, then a crash. He 
had been astride on a principal when it had given way and 
the man had fallen through the ceiling into the room beneath, 
tearing down the laths and plaster with him. He was not 
injured, he came forth a moment later, coughing and 
sneezing, as dusty as a miller, and was saluted with 
laughter. 

“ Halloo there ! ” shouted Macduff. “ The roof is 
going.” 

The failure of one principal entailed the fall of the rest; 
they were dragged out of place ; they slanted on one side, 
parted from the chimney, but remained on the walls, inclined. 

Thomasine, alarmed for her mother’s safety, now clung to 
the door, and cried to her to come forth. She could see 
nothing for the cloud that filled the cottage. Thomasine, 
lamed by her sprained ankle, stood at the door and limped 
painfully a step forward. 

" Oh, Arkie ! Arkie ! ” she cried, appealing to her lover, 
“ do run in and force mother to come out.” 

“ But she will not come,” remonstrated he. 

Another shout — now of dismay. 

“ The chimney ! the chimney ! ” 

A crack had suddenly revealed itself. The rotten loosely- 
compacted wall had parted. 

“ It will be down in a minute ! save her ! ” 

“ Five — I mean one sovereign to any who will bring her 
out,” shouted Macduff. 

Then Thomasine grasped Archelaus’ shoulder. “ Come,” 
she said, “ I will go — help, we must save her.” 

“I will do it,” said the lad, and plunged into the cottage. 

For a moment every one held his breath. Thomasine 
limped away from the doomed cottage. All heard the young 
fellow's voice shouting to Mrs. Kite. 


ARMINELL. 


*33 


Then, suddenly, the whole chimney came down with a 
rush. It' was as though it had closed into itself like a 
telescope. A dull, heavy thud, muffled by the dense en- 
veloping fog of dust, was heard, and then volumes of yellow 
smoke-like fumes poured out in gushes and spirals, and rose 
in a column above the cottage. 

Dense though the cloud was, in through it rushed the 
men, stumbling over heaps of stone, and choking in the 
thick air, but saw nothing whatever, could see nothing ; and 
came forth coughing, rubbing their eyes, half suffocated, half 
blinded. 

Nothing could be done, the extent of the mischief could 
not be discovered till the volumes of fine powder, pungent 
as snuff, had been given time to clear away, at least 
partially. 

Now Macduff plunged in, and stumbled against Thomasine 
weeping and wringing her hands, blindly groping in the 
opaque atmosphere, thick as soup. “ My mother ! My 
Arkie ! They are both dead ! Both taken from me ! ” 

“ Stand aside ! ” shouted the agent. “ What creatures 
these women are.” He coughed and growled. “ If any- 
thing has happened, it is her fault, she was warned. But 
the blame will be put on me.” Then he shouted, “ Tubb 1 
Tubb ! Mrs. Kite ! ” but received no answer. 

In at the door came the men again, miners and masons 
together, and by crouching they obtained clearer air, and 
were better able to see. The fallen chimney formed a great 
heap, and the ruins were spread over the whole floor ; but 
how high the heap rose they were unable to distinguish, for 
the dust-mist hung about it, dense, impenetrable, disclosing 
only, and that indistinctly, the base of the mound. 

Then a cry from Thomasine. She had clasped a hand 
that protruded from the rubbish pile. 

“ It is Arkie ! It is Arkie ! ” she cried. “ He is dead, 
he has been killed.” 


234 


ARMINELL. 


“ Run,” ordered Mr. Macduff. “ Run, some of you fel 
lows, for picks.” 

“ If he’s dead, you’ve killed ’n,” growled a miner. “ That 
is— you and my lord.” The man went forth, whilst the rest, 
crouching, wiping their eyes on their cuffs, and wiping the 
dust into them, clearing their throats and choking again, 
began to pull the stones away. But the chimney had been 
built of as much clay as stone. Though so close to a lime- 
kiln, little lime had been used in its construction, and the 
slaty stone itself corroded by weather and the lime which* 
had lain between its films in the quarry had dissolved to 
black powder. A pick did not suffice to remove the rub- 
bish, shovels were required as well. The dust did not dis- 
perse, every upturn of the heap sent forth fresh volumes 
mingled with soot ; but many hands were now engaged, and 
in ten minutes Archelaus Tubb had been extracted, and was 
carried forth and laid on the turf outside. 

He was so covered with dust that he looked as if made 
of dark earth, all of one colour — face, hair, clothing, 
hands. 

“ Run for a doctor,” called Macduff. “ Where is he to 
be taken to ? Go on some of you turning over the heap. 
Look for Mrs. Kite, she must be there. Confound the 
obstinacy of the woman. I shall be blamed for this, of 
course. Always so. The saddle put on the wrong horse. 
Some of you get water, and wash his face, and see where 
the lad is hurt. Please stand back, Thomasine, you can 
do no good. I will go back and help to find Mrs. Kite. 
Why the de’il could she not have come forth when bidden ? 
She had warning enough given her.” Then he returned to 
the cottage. Pie was now himself so covered with dust that 
the natural colour of his face and the tincture of his gar- 
ments could not be distinguished. Looking up from inside 
the cottage was like looking into a London fog. There 
was a great gap where the chimney had stood, the roof was 


ARMINELL. 235 

stripped of its covering and the principals were inclined 
out of their proper positions. 

“ Well,” said Macduff. “ Have you come on her ? ” 

“We haven’t come on nothing but Arkie Tubb,” answered 
one of the men. “There’s a lot of rummage more to be 
cleared away.” 

“ Look sharp about it,” said the agent. “ If she be 
buried, the only chance of life for her is to be dug out at 
once.” 

“ Not much chance of life, then,” said one of the men. 

A quarter of an hour passed, and Patience had not been 
exhumed. 

A diversion of interest was caused by the arrival of the 
surgeon. He examined the young man, and pronounced 
that, though he was not dead, he was so injured that he 
could not live beyond an hour. 

The last heap of fallen chimney-ruin had been cleared 
away, and Mrs. Kite had not been found. 

“She has been spirited away,” said the men. “We 
always knew she was a wise woman.” 

“ I wouldn’t have had this happen,” growled Macduff, 
“ not for ten pounds — I mean, two pounds ten. What a 
handle this will give to the enemy ! * 


CHAPTER XXV. 


BAMBOOZLED. 

Lord Lamerton was that day engaged in distributing 
prizes at a ploughing match, about fifteen miles away from 
Orleigh. 

“ My dear,” said he to his wife before he started, “ for 
goodness’ sake come with me into the avenue, and give me 
the heads of what I am to say.” 

Report had it that his lordship got all his speeches from 
his wife, and report was not far wrong in so saying. 

“ I’ll run up to Eggins,” he said, “and get him to £ive me 
some wrinkles about ploughing. I know nothing concern- 
ing it.” 

Thus primed, partly by one of his farmers and partly by 
his wife, his lordship started for the ploughing match ; and 
on reaching the ground inspected the furrows with his glass 
to his eye, and repeated some of the scraps of information 
he had gathered from Eggins. 

After that came the dinner, and after the dinner the prize 
distribution, and a speech from Lord Lamerton. 

His lordship stood up, and coughed. He was not a 
fluent speaker, nor a ready speaker ; indeed he could not 
speak at all unless he had been given time and opportunity 
to get primed. But he had a retentive memory, and when 
allowance was made for hesitation, and repetition, and 
/occasional halts, his speeches were admitted to be not so 


ARMINELL. 


237 

bad as are the generality of such performances. They read 
well; only it was a little irritating to listen to them. The 
hearer never could be su fe that his lordship would not break 
down altogether. Speaking made him and his audience 
hot. They perspired sympathetically. It made him un- 
certain what to do with his legs, and those listening to his 
words found their attention drawn away to his inferior 
members, and were kept in suspense as to what he would 
do next with his extremities. Sometimes he endeavoured 
to stand on one foot, and then he invariably lost his bal- 
ance, and grabbed at the table-cloth, or a lady’s bonnet to 
stay himself from falling. On such an occasion he lost the 
thread of his discourse, and had to seek it in his pocket- 
handkerchief, whilst those listening good-naturedly stamped 
and rapped the table, and shrieked “ Hear, hear ! ” 

Sometimes he curled one leg round the other in such a 
manner that to recover himself he was obliged to face 
about, and he found himself addressing the latter part of a 
sentence to the waiter and the tent wall behind him, instead 
of the audience at the table. It was said that once he put 
his foot into his plate on the table, but this was an exag- 
geration ; he caught himself about to do it and desisted in 
time. 

How is it that the Englishman is so poor a speaker ? I 
believe that the language is partly the cause. The English 
tongue is so simple in its structure that it runs out of the 
mouth faster than the ideas it is supposed to express have 
taken shape in the brain Consequently we males, some- 
times women even, say things before we have thought them 
out, and then are embarrassed because the thought lags 
behind the word, like the thunder after the flash. 

In such a language as the German, however, the mind 
has to formulate the sentence in all its ramifications and 
subsidiary articulations, before it is uttered. - The idea is 
kneaded, and squeezed into a shape and then baked. A 


ARMINELL. 


238 

tap, and out of the buttered mould comes the sentence, 
compact and complete, whereas, in English, the idea is not 
given time to set, it is not even half baked, and then it is 
shaken out, and falls to pieces as it appears ; or like an ill- 
set jelly, resolves into an insipid wash. 

When Lord Lamerton rose to his feet, he proceeded to 
blow his nose loudly, then he looked about him, and his 
face glowed redly. He caught the eye of the Rector of 
Oileigh, and he said to himself: “Deuce take the fellow, 
he will know whence I got this speech. He was discussing 
the matter with my lady the other day.” 

He arranged his legs as best he could to support his 
superincumbent weight, and to make quite sure of not 
losing his balance laid his hand on the back of a chair. 
Then he put the other hand into his pocket. 

“ Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “ I am not the sort 
of man you should have chosen to speak to you to-day, 
because ” 

Interruptions of “ No, no ! ” 

“ Because, if you allow me, I am not in the best of 
moods. I have had an attack, a damned — I beg your 
pardon, a dastardly at ack made on me in the public 
papers, and I have been — I have been represented — that 
is, represented as a monster of iniquity, one who is ruining 
the country, and driving trade out of it.” 

“No, no!” 

“ I was never more astonished and shocked in my life. 
I did think, gentlemen and ladies, that, if there was one 
thing I cherished and loved, and strove to live for, it was — 
that is to say — it was my country, and next to my country, 
my dear old — ipy dear old mother country.” 

General emotion, and some of the ladies who had taken 
more than two glasses of sherry felt the tears rise into their 
eyes. Every gentleman kindled and stamped and said, 
“ Hear, hear ! ” 


ARMINELL. 


239 


“ But,” continued Lord Lamerton, re-adjusting his 
balance, by putting one foot between the rails of the chair, 
and the other on the hat of a gentleman, that was on the floor 
near him, and removing his hand from his trouser to his 
waistcoat pocket, “ but, ladies and gentlemen, I will pass 
from personal matters to the subject in hand.” (Then, to 
himself, “ Confound the rector, I can see by the twinkle of 
his eye that he knows what is coming.”) “ But, ladies and 
gentlemen, we are here assembled on an august and inter- 
esting occasion, perhaps one of the most august and inter- 
esting that could have arisen — I mean, I mean, a ploughing- 
match. And this recalls me to the fact that one of our 
earliest English poets, William Langland, who lived in the 
reign of Richard II., wrote an entire poem on — what do 
you suppose ? Ploughing. He entitled his poem, ‘ The 
Vision of Piers the Ploughman.’ And what would you 
think, gentlemen and ladies, was the drift of this remarkable 
composition ? We know that long before, centuries earlier, 
Virgil wrote his ‘ Georgies,’ in praise of agriculture, but 
here, our English poet confined himself to one branch of 
agriculture, and that, ploughing. And the author represents 
all men — mark me — all men, as ploughmen, all, from the 
king on his throne and the parson in the pulpit, to the least 
among us all, as ploughmen set to make our furrows in the 
great field of the world. And, ladies and gentlemen, each 
has his own proper furrow to run, and he may make it well, 
or make it badly, plough deep, or merely skirt the soil, 
I lough straight, or run a feeble, fluttering, irregular line, or 
h e may even fold his hands, and take a snooze in the hedge, 
and make no attempt to plough.” 

A pause : the gentleman whose hat had been converted 
into a footstool recovered the crushed article from under 
the foot of the speaker, and cast at him a melancholy, 
reproachful glance. 

“ I beg your pardon, ’pon my soul, I did not mean it. I 


240 


ARMINELL. 


did not observe it.” This was said aside to the sufferer. 
Then after a complete rearrangement of his attitude, with 
his legs very wide apart, like that of the Colossus of Rhodes, 
Lord Lamerton continued, “ Ladies and gentlemen ! I am 
much afraid that some of us — I will not say all — for I do 
not believe it is true of all — I say some of us, and God 
knows, I include myself, on looking back at our furrows do 
not find them as we should have wished ; do not derive, I 
mean, much satisfaction in the retrospect ; but — but — let 
me see. Yes ! ” He leaned both his hands on the table, 
so that his back was curved, and his position was far from 
elegant. “ But, ladies and gentlemen, the broad fact 
remains, that we are all ploughboys together, and we must 
take a lesson from these hearty good fellows we have seen 
to-day, and in all we do and undertake, make our furrows 
straight, and drive them deep.” 

“ Hear ! Hear ! Hear ! ” and much thumping and stamp- 
ing ; in the midst of which Lord Lamerton sat down, and 
nearly missed his chair in so doing. Then he leaned over 
to the rector, and said, “ All my lady’s ; ’pon my soul, all. 
Never read a line of what’s-his-name in my life. She has — 
she reads everything.” 

Lord Lamerton returned to Orleigh by an evening train. 
The station was at some distance from his place. Only 
when the new line was made would he have a station near 
at hand. 

On reaching the Orleigh road station, the master told 
him what had occurred during his absence. His carriage 
was in waiting outside to take him home. 

“ Bless my heart ! ” exclaimed his lordship. “ You don’t 
mean to tell me that Tubb’s son is dead, and that the old 
woman has not been found? Here — ” said he to the 
coachman, “ set me down at the Chillacot turn, and drive 
on. I shall walk home, after I have made enquiries. 
Deuce take it ! I wouldn’t have had this happen for all I 


ARMINELL. 


241 


am worth. Poor Tubb ! He is a workman and will feel 
the loss of his son, though the fellow was not good for 
much — I know that I should be horribly cut up if anything 
were to happen to my cub.” 

He threw himself into the carriage, and continued his 
exclamations of distress and wonder how it.could have come 
about. “ Macduff must have gone to work clumsily. Bless 
the man, he is a machine.” 

The carriage stopped. 

“Shall I attend you, my lord?” asked the footman at 
the door, as he held it. 

“ Attend me ! What for ? Me ! I’m going to enquire 
about the matter, then I shall go on to Tubb’s cottage. 
Tell my lady not to wait dinner.” 

He swung his umbrella, and walked away. He marched 
to the quarry where had been Patience Kite’s cottage. He 
thought it possible that some one might still be on the spot, 
and that there he would learn the latest, fullest and most 
authentic particulars. That the old woman had been seen 
crouched at her hearth, that the chimney had fallen upon 
her, and that she had not been exhumed from the ruins, 
was to him inexplicable. When he came out on the clear- 
ing where the ruins of the cottage stood, Lord Lamerton 
was surprised to find it occupied by a crowd. A lantern 
was slung to one of the principals of the roof, above the 
head of a speaker who occupied a table that had been 
drawn out of the cottage. That speaker was Mr. James 
Welsh. Lord Lamerton did not know him by sight, only 
by reputation. 

As my lord appeared on the scene, those there assembled 
shrank aside, with a lo k of confusion and shyness. He 
listened for a moment to the orator, and then proceeded to 
push his way through the throng, which divided to allow 
him to pass : and, approaching the table, he said, “ I beg 
your pardon, sir ; I have not the honour of knowing your 

Q 


242 


ARMINELL. 


name ; but you are making pretty free with mine. What is 
it all about ? ” 

“ You are Lord Lamerton, I presume ? ” said the orator, 
looking at the dismayed faces of those within the radiance 
of the lantern. “ The saying goes that listeners hear no 
good of themselves. Perhaps it may be true in this case.” 

“ I have not been listening, but I have caught a 
sentence or two ; and I have no idea of allowing any one 
taking liberties with my name behind my back. If you 
have anything to say about me, say it to my face. What is 
all this about ? ” 

“What is all this about? ” repeated the orator. “His 
noble lordship, the Right Honourable Giles Inglett, Baron 
Lamerton, asks, What is all this about ? ” In a lower tone 
charged with oratorical irony, “ What is all this about ? ” 
Mr. Welsh looked round on his audience. “ Having shut 
up his manganese mine, and reduced a hundred men to 
destitution, broken up their homes, obliged them to wander 
over the face of the earth in quest of work, without houses 
of their own, without bread to put into the mouths of their 
children, forced to sell their poor sticks of furniture down 
to the baby’s cradle — he asks, What is all this about? 
After having torn down a house over the head of a poor 
widow, and bespattered her grey hairs with gore, he asks, 
What is all this about ? After having deprived a father of 
his only child, and an orphan of her mother, he has the 
effrontery — yes — in the face of his lordship I repeat the 
word, I repeat it in the boldness which my righteous in- 
dignation gives me — the effrontery to ask, What is all this 
about ? Possibly, when Cain saw his brother, his younger 
brother Abel, lying at his feet, with fractured skull and 
crushed limbs, he also asked, What is all this about? I 
will not pretend to know where his lordship has been all 
day ; but I do say that, as an Englishman, as a Christian, 
as a man, when he was about to render desolate the heart 


ARMINELL. 


243 


of a father by taking the life of his only son, and of a child 
by bereaving her of her mother, when he was about to tear 
the roof off from over the head of the widow and the 
fatherless, he should have been here , yes, here and not far 
away — Heaven knows where — in what scene of riot and 
revelry, into which decent folk like us would not venture to 
look.” 

“ Now come,” said Lord Lamerton, “ this is all rubbish. 
I have been at a ploughing match. I want to know what 
you are doing here. Who the deuce are you ? ” 

“My lord,” said the orator, “ I am — I rejoice to say it— 
one of the People, one of the down-trodden and ill-treated, 
the excluded from the good things of life. My heart, my 
lord, beats in the right place. Where yours is, my lord, it 
is not for me, it is for your own conscience to decide. But 
mine, mine — is in the right place. I am one of the people, 
and, my lord, let me inform you that when you insult me, 
you insult the entire people of England ; you bespatter not 
me only, but the whole of that enlightened, hearty, in- 
telligent people, of whom I see so many noble, generous 
specimens before me — you bespatter them, I repeat, my 
lord, you bespatter them in the grossest and most un- 
warranted fashion — with dirt.” 

“ ’Pon my soul,” interrupted Lord Lamerton, rapping on 
the table, “ I can make no heads nor tails out of all this. 
If you have anything against me, say it out. If you want 
anything, tell it me plainly. 1 am not unreasonable, but 
I’m not going to stand here and listen to all this rigmarole.” 

“ Perhaps, my lord, you are not aware, that there are 
many grievances under which the Public, the Public, my 
lord, are groaning. Shall I begin with the lighter, and pro- 
ceed to the graver, or reverse the process ? ” 

“ As you please. It is one to me.” 

“Very well,” said Welsh. He looked round com- 
placently on his audience, and rubbed his hands. “ His 


244 


ARMINELL. 


lordship, in all simplicity of heart, wants to know what oc- 
casion he has given for this indignation. What occasion,” 
with a chuckle, and those who could see his face and catch 
his tone chuckled also. “ What occasion,” with sarcasm, 
and his audience felt their gall rise. “ What occasion,” in 
a hollow thrilling tone, and the crowd responded with a 
groan. “ Shall we tell his lordship ? We will, and we will 
begin with some of the lighter grievances, heavy in them- 
selves, but light in comparison with the others. In the 
first place, what does he mean by throwing open the 
grounds on a Tuesday, a day when the public, as he knows, 
the hard-working public which needs relaxation and the 
sight of the beautiful, cannot enjoy the boon ? Is that, I 
ask, a day when the shops are closed ? Is it a day when 
the sons of toil in our cities can get away from their labours 
and admire the beauties of nature, and the charms of art ? 
It is not. The grounds are thrown open on Tuesdays, with 
almost fiendish malevolence, and the cunning of the serpent, 
that his lordship may obtain the credit of liberality, whilst 
doing nothing to deserve it. The true public are excluded 
by the selection of the day, but the gentle-folks, the parsons, 
the squir. s, and all the do-nothings, to whom one day is as 
another, they can see Orleigh Park on Tuesdays. If Lord 
Lamerton had in him any true humanity, any sympathy for 
the tradesman, for the clerk, for the milliner and the seam- 
stress, he would open on — let us say Saturday.” 

“ Very well,” said Lord Lamerton, “ I have no objection 
in the world, except that it will give the gardeners more to 
do, picking up the papers and scraps — henceforth the 
grounds shall be open to the public on Saturdays.” 

“ But, my lord, are the pictures and statuary and other 
works of art to be shown only to the aristocratic eye, and 
are they to be carefully kept within closed doors from the 
profane gaze of what you contemptuously call — The Com- 
mon People ? ” 


ARMINELL. 


245 


“ Not at all,” said Lord Lamerton. “ I will order that 
the state apartments be opened on Saturdays — though, Lord 
knows, above a questionable Van Dyck, there are no great 
shakes in the way of pictures there. Is that all ? ” 

“ That is not all,” proceeded Mr. James Welsh. “ Lord 
Lamerton innocently — I will not say, sheepishly — asks, Is 
that all ? No, I reply, and I reply as the mouth-piece of 
all present, as the shout of the democracy of England. It 
is not all. It is very far from being all. Is that all ? he 
asks, standing before you, out of whose mouths he has 
snatched the crust of bread, the staff of life. Is that all ? 
When he closes the manganese mine, and throws almost 
the entire population of Orleigh out of employ, and scatters 
them everywhere, hungry, homeless, forlorn.” 

“ Now, this a trifle too extravagant,” said Lord Lamerton. 
“ The mine would have gone under my house and brought 
it down. Why, it would have cost me twenty thousand 
pounds to rebuild the house.” 

“ You hear that! Twenty thousand pounds which might 
have been spent in Orleigh is refused the people. Twenty 
thousand pounds ! How many able-bodied men are there 
in Orleigh ? About two hundred. What might you not 
have done with a hundred pounds each ? What comforts 
might you not have provided yourselves with ? But his 
lordship buttons up his pockets. Look upon yourselves, 
each of you, as defrauded of a hundred pounds. My lord 
will bank his twenty thousand. He does not want it. He 
hoards it. He fossilizes it. There is a fable about a dog 
in the manger which snarled at the horses that wanted to eat 
out of that manger which was of no use at all to the hound.” 

Then Lord Lamerton raised his voice, and said, “ My 
good friends, I don’t believe you are so weak as to be 
•gulled by these fallacies. Why should I allow my house to 
be undermined and rattled down about my ears, if I can 
help it ? ” 


246 


ARMINELL. 


A voice from the throng shouted, “ Good for trade.” 

“ Some one has said,” continued Lord Lamerton, “ some 
one has remarked that it would be good for trade. I dis- 
pute this. I deny it energetically. I say that it would 
cost me twenty thousand pounds to rebuild the place, but I 
do not say that — if ousted by the manganese mine, I would 
rebuild it. Why should I ? If I built on any rock, how 
could I tell but that some vein of metal would again be 
found under it, and then I might be driven away once 
more. Or if I built on c’ay, some company might insist on 
exploring the clay for aluminium ; or if I built on gravel, it 
might be insisted on to under-dig me for coprolites, for the 
formation of artificial manure. Why, I say, should I risk 
my twenty thousand pounds when my very foundations are 
no security for the outlay ? I would say to myself : As 
there is no security any where, I will spend my twenty 
thousand pounds in amusing myself on the Continent, on 
personal jewellery — or God knows what selfish luxuries. 
Security of property, unassailability of right of property, 
that is the basis of all prosperity in trade. Touch property, 
and down goes trade with it. Look at the Jews in past 
times. They had no security, so they hoarded, and never 
spent a farthing they could not help. They did nothing 
for trade with their wealth. Touch property, and no one 
with money will do other than did the Jews. Touch ] ro- 
perty and down goes trade.” Lord Lamerton thumped the 
table. “Now look here, I don’t want to be hard on any 
one. I have lost a great deal of money already on the 
manganese, which has not paid for these five years, but has 
been worked at a dead loss. I don’t see my way to lose 
more, and to endanger, moreover, the walls of my house. 
That is plain sense. But as I say, I won’t be hard on any 
one. If the miners cannot get work elsewhere, I’ll set* 
them road- making. They can cut a new road as soon as 
ever it is settled where the station is to be, and hedge and 


ARMINELL. 247 

stone it. That will cost me a thousand pounds, if it will 
cost me a penny.” 

“Just listen to this proposal,” shouted Welsh, who found 
that the plain sense of Lord Lamerton was producing some 
effect. “ You hear his lordship’s magnanimous offer. He 
will take you honest, hearty, active mining fellows and 
debase you to stone-breakers by a road-side. He has had 
such experience in heart-breaking, that he thinks to set you 
a job that commends itself to his fancy — stone-breaking. 
But let us pass from this. I have not done with my nobl 
lord yet. Not by any means. The last of his misdeeds is 
not yet quite exhausted. I want to ask the Right Honour- 
able Baron Lamerton how it is that he is so sensitive about 
the tumbling down of his own house, and so ready by the 
hands of his Macduffs and other minions to tear down the 
walls of the widow’s cottage? I ask him that. See — he is 
confounded, he cannot answer.” Welsh looked round 
triumphantly. “ Nor is that all,” he pursued ; “ I have 
another question to put, to which also, I have no doubt, I 
shall meet with silence only as an answer. His lordship 
who is so touchy about the rights of property is, I suspect, 
only touchy about the rights of his own property. I have 
it on the best possible authority that he is threatening to 
dispossess a man whom we all esteem, Captain. Saltren, to 
dispossess him of his house and land, a house built by his 
father and repaired and beautified by himself. I believe I 
am not wrong in saying that he has threatened to employ 
law against our valued friend, Captain Saltren.” 

A cry of “ Shame, shame ! ” 

“ Yes,” pursued the orator, “ it is shame. What was that 
his lordship said just now about rights of property ? Touch 
property, he insisted, and down goes trade. Who is touch- 
ing property ? Who but he ? Who lays his envious grasp 
— he, Ahab, on the vineyard of the poor Naboth.” 

Then the orator jumped off the table, and in a changed 


248 


ARMINELL. 


tone said to Lord Lamerton, I must be off and report 
this meeting. IVe a train to catch. Give you a leader on 
it, old cock. No offence meant; none I hope taken. 
Both of us men of the world, and know how to live by it. 
I know as well as you what is gammon, but gammon is the 
staple diet of the chawbacon. Give us your hand.” He 
nudged the nobleman in the side. “ Bamboozled, my lord, 
eh ? I am James Welsh. Pretty considerably bamboozled, 
eh?** 


CHAPTER XXV I. 


DUM FOUNDERED, 

When James Welsh sprang from the table, and held out 
his hand, Lord Lamerton was in that condition of bam- 
boozlement that he did not know what to do, whether to 
mount the table and address the audience, or to walk away ; 
whether to accept the proffered hand, or to refuse it. He 
felt as does a boy who has been blindfolded and set in the 
midst of a room to he spun about, struck, and bidden 
catch his persecutors, but who finds himself unable to touch 
one. 

Whatsoever he said was caught from his lips and con- 
verted into a fresh charge against him : every kindness he 
proposed was perverted into an act of barbarity. ' 

And then — after he had been thus treated, his persecutor 
bounced down before him, and in the most cheery tone in 
the world, declared that no offence was intended, asked him 
if he were bamboozled, and invited him to shake hands. 
Lord Lamerton was no match for his assailant. He was 
not a ready man. When he had been primed by his wife, 
or after laborious preparation, he was able to produce the 
collected matter, but neither smoothly nor naturally. His 
sentences came from him as liquid issues from a barrel un- 
provided with a vent. They flowed for a while, then 
stopped, and a gulp ensued ; after that a drop or two ; 
another gulp, and then a rush of words forming a sentence, 


250 


ARM I NELL. 


or, more probably, a sentence and a half. An interruption 
confused Lord Lamerton, a question silenced him. He 
was deficient in precisely those qualities which Mr. Welsh 
possessed in perfection —ready wit, assurance, bluntness of 
feeling, qualities essential to the successful orator. Welsh 
knew exactly how to keep in touch with his audience, he 
could gauge their ignorance at a glance, and would always 
accommodate himself to their capacity. He had unbounded 
audacity, because utterly without scruple ; he had smartness, 
and skill in parrying. 

Lord Lamerton stood back. The night was not dark, 
but the trees cast shadows about the glade where the meet- 
ing was held, and the lantern cast but a feeble light. His 
movements could be seen only by those who were close to 
him, and in his condition of bamboozlement, he was glad 
to take advantage of the opening made in the throng by 
Welsh, to follow and place himself outside the crowd. He 
did not leave altogether ; he remained to see what would 
follow, and to gather together his scattered senses. He 
leaned against the bole of a Scotch pine, and looked on un- 
observed. Those who had noticed that he had passed 
through concluded that he had left entirely. 

“ What a thing it is,” muttered Lord Lamerton, “ to have 
the gift of assurance. That fellow was all in the wrong, and 
I was all in the right, but I could not explain my right, and 
he was able to make all I said seem wrong. Ton my soul, 
I don’t believe that he was in earnest, and believed in what 
he said. I couldn’t do that, God bless me ! I couldn’t do 
that and look my lady in the face again.” 

Suddenly Captain Saltren appeared on the table vacated 
by Welsh. He looked more gaunt, hollow-eyed and pale 
than usual, but this may have been the effect of the lantern- 
light falling from above on his prominent features. The 
moment he appeared he was greeted with clapping of hands 
and cheers. 


ARMINELL. 


*5. T 

As Lord Lamerton looked on, he thought the scene was 
strangely picturesque, it was like a meeting of old Scotch 
Covenanters. To the north, the sky was full of twilight, 
but black clouds drove over it, flying rapidly, though little 
wind was perceptible below. Against the silvery light rose 
the well-wooded hill with spires of pine, and larch, and 
spruce, like one of those fantastic prospects of a mediaeval 
city in Dore’s night pictures. In front was the ruined 
cottage with the yellow lantern, suspended from a projecting 
beam, and in its radiance the form of the mining captain as 
wild as the surroundings. Between the looker-on and the 
table were the figures of men, boys, and some women, 
partially illumined by the pale twilight from above, partially 
by the yellow halo of the lantern. Now and then a match 
was struck, as a man lit his pip^e, and then, there was a 
flare, and the heads that intervened were distinctly seen, 
black against the momentary flash. 

Saltren looked from side to side, and waved his arms. 
As he did so, the fingers of his right hand came within the 
direct rays of the lantern, and were seen quivering and in 
movement as though he were engaged in playing a piece of 
rapid music on an unseen instrument. And in truth, he 
was so doing, and doing, it unconsciously. From these 
long, thin, thrilling fingers, invisible threads attached them- 
selves to the nerves of those who stood before him, and be- 
fore he spoke, before he opened his mouth, a magic, alto- 
gether marvellous accord was established between him and 
those who surrounded him. It is told of St. Anthony of 
Padua that he was once asked to preach to an audience 
whose tongue he could not speak, and who understood not 
a word of Italian. He went up into the pulpit, looked 
round, and all in the church went into paroxysms of con- 
trition and tears, and — he had net said a word. The secret 
of this power is intensity of conviction and absolute sincerity. 
Saltren was convinced and sincere. The look of his face, 


252 


ARMINELL. 


the agitation of his limbs, the convulsive movements of his 
lips all proclaimed his sincerity. 

The captain, moreover, was known to all those who now 
looked up to him, known as a man of probity, true in all he 
said and just in all he did, a blameless man. But though 
his blamelessness commanded respect, there was in him 
something beyond the blamelessness that commanded re- 
spect ; and that something was his spirituality. Men felt 
and acknowledged that there existed in him a mysterious 
link with the unseen world. All, even the dullest, were 
aware, when speaking with Captain Saltren, that they were 
in the presence of a man who lived in two worlds, and 
principally in that which was supersensual and immaterial. 
He impressed the people of Orleigh — as did Patience Kite 
— with awe. These two belonged to the same category of 
beings who lived in an atmosphere of the supernatural ; the 
captain talked with angels, and Patience Kite with, perhaps, 
devils. The influence exerted was not confined to the 
ignorant, it extended to those who were partially educated ; 
perhaps he influenced these latter even more than the 
former. In the general flux and disintegration of belief, 
those who were most aware of the debacle clung most 
tenaciously to the skirts of such who still remained con- 
vinced. Now Mrs. Kite, however sceptical she might be 
in religious matters, had no doubt whatever in her own 
powers, and Captain Saltren was profoundly rooted in his 
own convictions, and this was the source of the strength of 
both. 

As he stood on the table, his limbs trembled as though 
he were stricken with the ague, his mouth quivered, sweat 
streamed from his face. He could not speak, emotion 
overpowered him. He waved his hands, and his fingers 
clutched at the air, and he looked nervously from side to 
side. 

A woman screamed, fell on her knees, and shrieked for 


ARMINELL. 


253 


mercy. She thought she was at a revivalist meeting, and 
the movement of Saltren’s hands had caught every nerve in 
her head and had drawn together and knotted them, so that 
she shrieked with the tension insupportable. 

“ My friends and fellow sufferers,” began Saltren. The 
cry of the woman had unloosed his tongue, for it proclaimed 
that sympathy was established between him and his 
hearers. “ I have doubted ” — he spoke slowly, in a low 
tone, with tremor in his tones, and with diffidence — “ I have 
doubted whether I should address you or not. I do not 
desire to speak. I am held back, and yet I am thrust on. 
I am like an anchored vessel with the sails spread and the 
wind filling them. The anchor must part, or the sails be 
torn to shreds. The anchor is in the earth, the breath of 
heaven is in the sails. I know which ought to go. But 
there is strain — great strain ; ” he paused and passed his 
hand over his face, and it came away dripping with 
moisture. “I have no natural gift. 1 am fearful of my- 
self. I cannot speak as did James Welsh. I am no 
scholar. I am an ignorant man. But so were the 
apostles, taken from their nets, and so was Levi taken from 
the receipt of custom. So was Elisha, drawn from the 
plough. I hang back. I can say with David, my heart is 
not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty. Surely I have behaved 
and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of his 
mother.” 

Then the woman, kneeling, began again to scream, 
“ Lord, have mercy ! have mercy ! ” and her cries assisted 
in thrilling and exciting the speaker and people alike. 
Some of the audience began to groan and sigh. One 
young bumpkin from behind called out, “ We don’t want no 
sarmon. If you’re going to preach, I’m off.” Then ensued 
a commotion ; heads were turned, exclamations of anger 
and disgust greeted the interruption, and the lad was 
hustled away. 


254 


ARM I NELL. 


Saltren resumed his speech, when the interruption was 
over and quiet restored. 

“ I am,” he said, “ a quiet man. I keep to myself and 
to my own concerns. So was Gideon a quiet man, keeping 
to himself and his farm. But the spirit of prophecy came 
on him, and he was summoned to lead the people against 
Midian, and to smite the enemy hip and thigh, and utterly 
to destroy them.” The tones of his voice became firmer 
and deeper. His hearers trembled as he trembled, and 
their hearts quivered with every vibration of his voice. 

Lord Lamerton listened with amazement. He and that 
ploughboy who had called out in mockery were ’the only 
two in that assembly who had not fallen under the in- 
fluence of the orator, one because he was cultivated beyond 
its reach, the other because he was spiritually sunk beneath 
it. 

The clouds had now formed a black canopy overhead, 
and as a pause ensued in the address of Saltren, the rush of 
the wind could be heard in the tree-tops. 

“ There was neither sword nor spear found among the 
Israelites,” continued Saltren, “and yet they overthrew 
their enemies, and the way was scattered with their gar- 
ments and weapons as far as Jordan. I am an ignorant and 
a foolish man, and yet I am sent to you commissioned 
from above. I cannot forbear, for I am driven on. Moses 
was in favour with the Egyptians, and yet he threw away 
his advantages because of the sighing and the groaning of 
his people. I have had no favour with the Egyptians, but 
1 have been sent to lead Israel out of captivity. I would 
keep silence, but I may not. I have had a call as had 
Jonah, and if I try like him to fly, I shall be brought back. 
I must deliver my message. If I were sunk in the sea, the 
sea would throw me up. If I were covered by the 
mountains falling, I should come forth to proclaim the 
message. That is why I stand here before you. I have 


ARMINELL. 


2 5 $ 

wrestled with myself. I have shrunk from declaring what 
I have seen and heard, but if I were to hold my peace, I 
should be broken as a rotten branch, and be consumed in 
the fire. Therefore I must speak.” 

He paused and drew a long breath, and again wiped his 
brow. All the audience drew a long breath with him. 
Overhead the wind muttered and puffed, and along the 
horizon at the back the dark spires bent and righted them- 
selves. 

“I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day,” said Saltren, and 
at once, as he said the words, the man was changed. His 
tremors ceased, his knees no longer shook, he stood firm 
with head erect, and with a face as that of a frozen man and 
his hands clasped before his breast. 

“T was in the spirit on the Lord’s day,” he repeated. 
“ I was here, hard by, down by the water — no, on the 
water, in the old quarry, engaged in prayer. Then, sud- 
denly, I saw a light from heaven above tlie brightness of the 
sun, and I was as one dazzled and in a trance ; and I heard 
a voice, like the voice of a trumpet calling to me, and say- 
ing, Saltren, Saltren, Saltren ! Then, before I could 
answer, I saw an angel flying in the midst of heaven, having 
a little book in his hand, and he held it aloft, and cried, 

4 This is the Book of the Everlasting Gospel, this is the 
truth hid from the earth for ten thousand years, and now at 
length revealed unto men.’ Then I cried, Give me the 
book. And the angel cast it down, and said, ‘This is the 
Everlasting Gospel, all men are equal, all are the sons of 
the one Adam, and are children of one family. There 
shall be no more rich and poor, noble and common ; all 
shall be equal, and so all shall be one.’” 

Then some of those who heard, carried away by their 
emotions, began to leap and hold up their hands, and cry, 
“ Glory, Allelulia ! ” and the woman on her knees was 
ioined by others who united in cries for mercy. For a few 


ARM I NELL. 


256 

moments a whirlwind of groans and exclamations and 
general commotion swept over the assembly, and as 
suddenly died away again. 

“ Then,” continued Saltren, “ Then the angel cast down 
the book, and it fell into the water, but as it fell I read 
thereon the title, The Gilded Clique . And what, I ask, is 
the gilded clique, which, like a sponge, sucks in all the 
wealth of the country and gives nothing back ? What is the 
gilded clique which claims to itself nobility and gentility^ 
and calls us common and unclean ? What is the gilded 
clique which sits alone, firm on its strong foundations struck 
in the earth, and drives us from place to place in search of 
work and food ? Which denies to all but itself sure and 
lasting homes, and a certain future? What is the gilded 
clique which carries corruption into our families, and 
blights the land with its vices ? The gilded clique ! Such 
are they. A handful of dirt ! Such are we. But where 
are truth and righteousness, diligence and honesty to be 
found ? Among them ? In the gilded clique ? or among 
us, in the handful of dirt? The day of reckoning is ap- 
proaching, already has one seal of the seven been un- 
clasped, and I have read what it is to be, and what I have 
read, that must I proclaim. As I wrestle night and day in 
prayer, more and more of the contents of the book are 
disclosed to me. When it fell from heaven, I saw only the 
cover and what was thereon, but since then, when I am in 
prayer, I am shown the book and the seals, and one after 
another is unclosed and I read further. Time will reveal 
what is now hidden from your eyes. Only have confidence, 
and look forward.” 

As Saltren talked, he worked himself out of the constraint 
with which he had begun, and he spoke easily, fluently, as 
one inspired, speaking with authority ; and his action as he 
addressed the audience was dignified, serious and easy. 
His voice was full, deep and sonorous, and his eye flashed 


ARMINELL. 


257 


with conscious power. Whilst he was speaking, a few 
drops of rain began to fall, large and warm ; and the sky 
overhead was black with cloud. Behind, in the ruined 
cottage, strange, spectral, blue flashing lights began to 
play, seen at first on the threshold, then on the hearth, and 
then dancing from one end to another of the hovel. The 
course of the flame could npt be traced by those without, 
because the walls intervened, but it was seen quivering at 
the broken doorway, and then through the shattered 
window. 

Those who stood near the cottage, shrank from it, cowering 
back, pressing on those behind, leaving a space between them 
and the table, and the house where these ghostly lights moved 
about. Saltren alone was unconscious of what passed in the 
ruin, for his back was to it. 

“ We have our misery brought home to us,” he continued. 
“ Wliy are we thrown out of work ? Why am I threatened 
with having my house taken from me ? Why is this cottage 
torn down, and the stones cast upon an innocent man to 
crush the life out of him : The Lord has suffered all this 
to come upon us at once, so as to rouse us to a knowledge 
of the truth revealed to me that ail are equal, and in our 
equality are one ; and that the time has arrived when the 
poor are to rise and put their feet on the necks of their 
oppressors. I saw on the cover of that book which de- 
scended to me from above the clouds, the head of a man, 
and the cover was red with blood, and I saw how that that 
man was handed over first to destruction, the first among 
many ; and I know how that the heads of those predestined 
to destruction will appear in order, one after another, on 
the cover of the book, as the sentence goes forth against 
each. He who comes first is the chief offender, he who 
has caused so much woe, he who has destroyed the peace 
of homes, that one — ” 

A shout of “ Name, name 1 ” 

R 


258 


ARMINELI,. 


Then, suddenly, from within the ruin flared up a vivid 
conflagration, golden yellow, so brilliant as to light up the 
faces of all present turned to the speaker, and convert every 
leaf of every tree into a flake of gold. 

Women shrieked, then were instantaneously hushed, 
hushed as in death, for, standing on the table behind 
Saltren, they saw Patience Kite, wild, ragged, with her hair 
about her shoulders, and an arm extended, pointing. Saltren, 
also, by the vivid glare, saw Lord Lamerton under the Scotch 
fir, his face catching full the reflection, as if illumined by 
the sun. 

“Do you ask his name?” he shouted. “He is there.” 
He also pointed, and all the while was unconscious that the 
wild woman near him was indicating the same man. 

Then the whole assembly turned to look, and for a moment 
saw Lord Lamerton. 

For a moment only, for the flame tell, and cries, piercing, 
thrilling every nerve, distracted the attention of the crowd. 
A woman had fallen in convulsions on the ground, declaring 
that she had seen the Devil. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


FLOUTED. 

Lord Lamerton put his hand to his head — he could not 
have spoken if addressed, he was dumfoundered. After the 
assault delivered by James Welsh, he might possibly have 
blundered through some sort of self-exculpation, but the 
attack of Captain Saltren was so amazing, so unexpected, 
so different in kind from anything against which he was 
armed, that he could not speak, could not utter a syllable. 

He was all at once caught by the arm, and saw the faces 
of Jingles and Arminell. 

“My lord,” said young Saltren, hastily, “you must not 
stay here. The people are incensed, and may do you an 
injury.” 

Lord Lamerton looked from the tutor to his daughter, 
and then back again. What had brought him there ? Why 
had Arminell thus acted in disobedience to his wishes, and 
against common decorum? But he said nothing, he was 
struck dumb. The world was turned upside down, and 
those who had stood on their feet were now on their heads. 

Young Saltren took his arm, and he allowed himself to 
be led away. 

He did not recover at once from his bewilderment He 
was as a man stunned. What he had experienced that 
night was unlike any other experience he had gone through. 
A sense of helplessness momentarily came upon him, of 


26 o 


ARMINELL. 


inability to resist the forces of fanaticism, unscrupulous 
partisanship, superstition and prejudice gathered against 
him. He could neither descend to the personalities and 
dishonesties of Welsh, nor climb to the fantastic extrava- 
gance of Saltren. 

Like a plain Englishman he liked to fight face to face 
with his antagonist on open ground, and on a level, to hit 
straight before him, and give hard blows ; but he was taken 
in flank, and bewildered among the tortuous defiles into 
which he was drawn by Welsh, and unable to touch Saltren 
who menaced him from aerial heights. 

There are two sorts of culture, as there are two eyes and 
two ears, and two hands, and two feet to every man, and 
two poles to the globe, and two lights to rule the day and 
night. But these two cultures are very different in their 
effects. 

The man without intellectual culture has strong opinions, 
is rugged and angular, and is unable to conceive of the 
possibility of any qualifications to what he holds' as the 
truth. As he becomes cultivated, he is cut into more facets, 
and rubbed down, and still further culture makes the angles 
obtuse and multiplies the facets till finally he loses all angles, 
and becomes a globe. Friction among his fellowmen has 
rubbed away every sharpness of opinion, till with perfect 
culture he ceases to have any opinions at all. Let us put 
the same fact in another way. The rude man comes out of 
the dye-vat intense in the colour of his opinions, but every 
dip he gets in mixed society runs some of his colour out of 
him, and after having been plunged a good many times in 
the social wash-tub he ceases to have any distinguishable 
colour whatever. Intellectual culture makes a man moderate 
and tolerant, because he becomes indifferent. 

Moral culture has an opposite effect. The uncultivated 
moral faculty is dull, and blunt to discriminate between 
right and wrong ; the moral palate requires training, for by 


ARMINELL. 


261 


nature it tastes only what is crude, and distinguishes sharp 
extremes. The discipline of life, many a painful experience, 
and some humiliation, serve to train the moral faculty to 
nice distinction, and teach it to shrink from the smallest 
sources of falsehood, to avoid the rank and gross, and to 
acquire the strictest love of justice. It, learns to enjoy the 
soft velvety port, and to pass the brandied logwood un- 
touched. 

Lord Lamerton was a man of double culture. He was 
not a man of brains, but he was thoroughly scrupulous and 
honourable, eminently a fair man, and essentially truthful. 
As such he was incapable of meeting Welsh. His moral 
culture had disarmed him for such a combat. He was like 
a man called to duel, handling a polished rapier, and en- 
gaged with an antagonist armed with a revolver. On the 
other hand, his intellectual culture incapacitated him from 
meeting Captain Saltren. Such a craze as that of his about 
a vision of an angel bearing the Everlasting Gospel was a 
craze and nothing more, undeserving of being argued about, 
entitling the holder to a cell in Bedlam. 

Political unscrupulousness and fanatical unreason were 
united against him, and although he was aware thy.t they 
were powerless to injure him, still they might cause him 
considerable annoyance. It is never pleasant to be on bad 
terms with neighbours, however removed from them one 
may be in class and fortune. It is like living in a land 
haunted by malaria. You are safe on your toft of high 
land, and look down on the vaporous and poisonous region 
below, but it hems you in, it interferes with your independ- 
ence, you have to reckon upon it, and avoid it. To Lord 
Lamerton it was intolerable to be on other terms than the 
best with every one, and he was ruffled and hurt by lack of 
cordiality and want of reciprocity. 

How could he bring these misguided people to their 
senses ? It would not do for him to send Macduff among 


262 


ARMINELL. 


them. Macduff was a Scotchman, and did not understand 
the ways of thought of the Southerners. He was himself 
unable to do anything. He put his hand to his head — he 
was utterly dumfoundered. 

All this while he was walking away, led by the tutor, and 
had his daughter on the other side of him. 

Then, abruptly, Lord Lamer ton asked, “ How long have 
you been listening to that — to — I mean — him ? ” 

“ O, papa, we have only just arrived, as dinner is over,” 
answered Arminell. “ I heard from Mr. Saltren that there 
was to be a meeting of protest at the ruined cottage, and I 
persuaded him to accompany me to it. But we came late — 
and now the rain has begun to pour down, it will disperse 
the assembly.” 

“ Did you know I was here ? ” 

“ No — I heard you had walked on to Captain Tubb’s 
house to make enquiries.” 

Lord Lamerton disengaged his arm from that of Jingles, 
who still held it, and said, “ Mr. Saltren, your way lies to 
Chillacot. You are no doubt going to your father, and will 
be glad to remain with him. 1 will give orders that your 
clothes and other possessions be removed to-morrow. 
Things necessary for the night shall be sent at once.” 

“ My lord ! ” 

“ I wish you a very good evening, Mr. Saltren, and a 
good-bye.” 

Then Lord Lamerton took his daughter’s arm, and walked 
hastily away. The rain was beginning to fall heavily. 

He said nothing more for some distance, and Arminell 
remained silent. But when the park gates were reached, 
he spoke, and his voice shook as he did so. 

“ Arminell, this is too bad, this is direct and deliberate 
revolt. It is not enough for me to be attacked from without, 
but I must encounter treason in the camp.” 

“ 1 will not pretend to misunderstand you, papi ,” said 


ARMINELL. 263 

Arminell. “ You are annoyed at my coming out at night 
with Mr. Saltren — with Giles senior.” 

“ Arminell ! ” 

“I am sorry to have caused you annoyance, but, papa, 
in the first place I was desirous of seeing the meeting, 
and hearing what was said at it, and of judging for my- 
self.” 

“Of hearing your own father abused, insulted and de- 
nounced.” 

“Not exactly that, papa; but surely there is wrong on 
both sides.” 

“And you constituted yourself judge over your father !” 

“ No, papa, I wished to hear what was said, and I asked — 
you know whom I mean — to come with me. It may pos- 
sibly have been indiscreet.” 

“ Not merely indiscreet, but wrong, for it was an act of 
deliberate, wilful disobedience to the wishes of your father, 
plainly expressed.” 

“ I do not wish to vex and disobey you, papa, but I will 
exercise my independence and judgment. I cannot allow 
myself to be cooped in the cage of proprieties. I must see 
what is going on, and form my own opinions.” 

“Very well — you shall go to your Aunt Hermione. 
Your step-mother is not good enough for you. I — your 
father — am not good enough for you. We are all too strait- 
laced, too tied hand and foot by the laces of respectability, 
to serve as guide or check on such a headstrong piece of 
goods as yourself. You go to Hermione next week.” 

“ I do not wish to go to her. I dislike her. I detest the 
sort of life led in her house, a life utterly hollow, frivolous 
and insincere.” 

“ She is a woman of the world.” 

“ A woman of the world that is passing away. I am 
standing with one foot on a world that is coming on, and I 
will not step back on to the other.” 


264 


ARMINELL. 


“ You go to Aunt Hermione,” said Lord Lamerton 
peremptorily. He was losing his temper. 

“ How long am I to be with her ? ” 

“ That depends. Your mother has written to ask her to 
receive you for six months.”' 

“Six months!” Arminell disengaged herself from her 
father. “Six months is an eternity. I cannot ! I will not 
submit to this. I shall do something desperate. I detest 
that old Hermione. Her voice grates on my nerves, her 
laugh raises my bad passions. I can hardly endure her for 
six days. Her good nature is imbecility itself, and pro- 
vokes me ; her vanity makes her ridiculous. I cannot, in- 
deed, I will not go to her.” 

“ You must, Armie ! It is my wish — it is my com- 
mand.” 

“ But not for six months. Six weeks is the outside 
of my endurance.” 

“ Armie, I heartily wish that there were no necessity for 
parting with you at all, but you have given me and your 
mother such cause for anxiety, and such pain, that we have 
concluded together that it is best for you and us to be 
separated for a while. You, I have said, give me pain, 
especially now at a time when I am worried by external 
troubles. I cannot force you to go to your aunt’s, nor 
force you to remain there longer than you choose, but you 
know my intentions, and they are for your good, and our 
own relief.” 

“ Am I such an annoyance to you ? ” asked Arminell, in 
a subdued tone. 

“ Of course, with your waywardness, and open defiance 
of our authority, you are. You have made me — let alone 
my lady — very unhappy. You have set yourself up to dis- 
agree with us at every point, to run counter to all our 
wishes, and to take up with oersons with whom we dis- 
approve of your associating.” 


ARMINELL. 


265 


“ I give you pain, papa ? ” 

“Very much pain indeed.” 

“ And you think it would make you happier if I left 
Orleigh, and that it would also be better for me ? ” 

“ I do, indeed.” 

“And six months, you suppose, will cure me of my 
wilfulness ? ” 

“ I do not say that ; that depends on yourself.” 

“ Anyhow, for six months you will have ease of mind if I 
tm away from you, and in good hands ? ” 

“ In good hands, certainly. Hermione’s house is a very 
suitable school. You will there be brought to understand 
that deference is due to your superiors, consideration for 
the feelings of others, respect for opinions that differ from 
your own, and especially that regard is to be had for les 
conveyances, without which social life would go to pieces, as 
a chain of pearls that has lost its connecting links. Les 
convenances may be, and indeed are, in themselves nothing, 
but they hold society together. You have been left too 
much to yourself or with unsatisfactory governesses. You 
must be taught youi proper place. You must go into the 
stream of social life, and feel the current and its irresistible 
force.” 

“Very well, papa, I will go.” 

“Your aunt will be sure to write to-day; we shall have a 
letter to-morrow.” 

Arminell said nothing. H*i brows were knit and her 
lips set. 

“ I am sorry we have to give up the trip to Switzerland : 
it might have been pleasant, had we been all together, but I 
must deny myself that. The Irish property has brought in 
nothing; and I have lost money in other ways; now I must 
set the men to work on the new road — that is, if they will 
condescend to make it.” 

On reaching the house, Lord Lamerton went at once to 


266 


ARM1NELL. 


the drawing-room, and caught his wife dozing over a magazine. 
He put his hand on her shoulder, and said, 

“Julia !” 

She started, and dropped her book. 

“ Oh, you are back at last ! Have you had anything to eat?” 

“ More than I am able to digest, my dear.” 

“ How did the speech succeed ? You remembered 
Langland’s date, I hope ? ” 

“ My dear, I have heard too many speeches to-day to 
remember anything about my own — that is to say, yours. 
I have had three — one from Mr. Welsh, one from Captain 
Saltren, and one from Arminell, and upon my soul, I do not 
know which was the most unpleasant. Do you know where 
Arminell has been since dinner?” 

“ In her room, I suppose.” 

“No; she has been out — with Jingles.” 

“ Never ! ” 

Her ladyship looked blank. 

“ It is a tact. She went with him to a meeting held by 
the malcontents against me ; went to hear what they had to 
say against her own father, and went with that fellow with 
whom you had cautioned her not to be seen, and whom I 
had forbidden to associate with hei{” 

“ Good gracious ! how improper.” 

“ The girl is unmanageable. However, I have got her to 
promise to go to her Aunt Hermione for a bit, if Hermione 
will take her. I tried to make her agree to six months, but 
I am not sure that I can bring her to consent to so long a 
banishment.” 

“ But — to go out with Jingles, after all that has been said 
to her ! ” 

“And for him to have the audacity to take her out — and 
to such a meeting.” 

“They must have gone out immediately after dinr.<*r. 
You have not dined ? ” 


ARMINELL. 


267 


Lord Lamerton shook his head. 

“ I have swallowed a good deal to-day,” he said with an 
attempt at a smile. “ I have been bamboozled by Welsh, 
dumfoundered by Saltren, and flouted bv Arminell.” 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


A CONTRETEMPS. 

The inquest on young Tubb took place on the following 
day. This occasioned fresh unpleasantness, and further 
excitement of feeling. Unfortunately Captain Saltren was 
on the jury, and he insisted against all evidence and reason, 
in maintaining that the verdict should be to the effect that 
Archelaus Tubb had been murdered by his lordship. One 
other juryman agreed with him, but the others could not 
go so far. As Saltren stubbornly refused to yield, the jury 
was discharged, and another summoned by the coroner, 
which returned “ Accidental death,” but with a rider 
blaming Macduff for carelessness in the destruction of the 
cottage. 

Arminell was changed in her behaviour to her father since 
she had heard Mrs. Saltren’s story. She had lost faith in 
him ; those good qualities which she had previously recog- 
nised in him, she now believed to be unreal. The man as 
he was had been disclosed to her — false, sensual, wanting 
in honour. All the good he displayed was the domino cast 
over and concealing the mean and shabby reality. He wore 
his domino naturally, with a frank bonhommie which was the 
perfection of acting — but then, it was acting. Arminell was 
very straightforward, blunt and sincere, and hated everything 
which was not open. Social life she represented to herself 
as a school of disguises, a masquerade in which no one 


ARMINELL. 


269 

shows as he is, but dresses in the part he wishes to appear 
in. Some men and women are such finished actors that 
they forget themselves in their assumed parts, and such was 
her father. Having to occupy the position of a county 
magnate, he had come to fit the position exteriorly, and had 
accommodated his conscience to the delusion that he was 
what he pretended to be — the wealthy, blameless, honourable 
nobleman, against whom not a stone could be cast. All this 
was a pretence, and Arminell was not angry, only her moral 
nature revolted at the assumption. Her high principle and 
downrightness made her resent the fraud that had been per- 
petrated on herself and the world. 

She had on several occasions heard her father speak in 
public, and had felt ashamed because he spoke so badly, 
but chiefly because she was convinced that he was repeating, 
parrot-like, what had been put into his mouth by my lady. 
He pretended to speak his own thoughts, and he spoke 
those of his wife — that was an assumption, and so was his 
respectability, so his morality. 

Arminell had long undervalued her father’s mental powers, 
but she had believed in his rectitude. She thought his virtue 
was like that stupid going-straightforward that is found in a 
farmer’s horse, which will jog along the road, and go straight, 
and be asleep as it goes. But Mrs. Saltren’s story, which 
she believed in spite of the improbabilities — improbabilities 
she did not stop to consider, had overthrown the conviction, 
and she now saw in her father a man as morally imperfect 
as he was intellectually deficient. 

Had he been open, and not attempted to disguise his 
offence, she might have forgiven him, but when he assumed 
the disguise of an upright God-fearing man, doing his duty, 
her strictly truthful nature rose up in indignant protest. 
****** 

“ My dear ! ” exclaimed Lady Lamerton ; “ good gracious, 
what is this I hear? What have you done? Undertaken 


ARMINELL. 


270 

to throw open the grounds and house on Saturday ! Why, 
Lamerton, how could you ? Saturday is the day on which 
I proposed to give our garden-party.” 

“ Ton my word, Julia, I forgot about your garden- 
party ! ” 

“ You promised to make a note of the day.” 

“So I did — not to be from home. But I forgot when I 
was asked to allow the place to be seen.” 

“You must countermand the order to have it opened.”' 
x “ That I cannot do. I publicly, at the meeting, an- 
nounced that I would allow the house and grounds to be 
overrun on Saturday, and I cannot withdraw the per- 
mission.” 

“ Only for this once.” 

“ Not for this once. It is the first Saturday after the 
promise was made. You must postpone your garden-party.” 

“ I cannot do that. The invitations have been sent out. 
There is no time ; ices, the band, everything, are ordered.” 

“Well, Julia, we must make shift as we can.” 

“ Look here, Lamerton, how will it do to confine 
our party to the terrace and garden, and have refreshments 
in the orangery? ” 

“ So be it ; that will do very well. The guests will not 
object. Tell them there has been a clash, and they will 
enjoy the joke.” 

“The public will want to be admitted to the house by 
the principal entrance.” 

“ Of course. They are to be shown the state apart- 
aients, and the doubtful Van Dyck.” 

“Then — how about our guests ? What a predicament 
you have got me into. We cannot receive our guests at the 
back door.” 

“No need for that, Julia. Receive in the garden. The 
carriages will set down the guests at the iron gates. Pray 
heaven we may have fine’weather ! ” 


ARMINELL. 


27I 


“It will be very awkward. The footmen will have to 
look after the sight-seers, that they do not poke their 
umbrellas through the pictures, or finger the ornaments — 
and we shall want them in the garden to attend to our 
guests ! ” 

“ It will go all right. I will send Macduff to arrange. 
He is a manager.” * 

After a pause, Lady Lamerton said, “ I am glad 
Hermione will take Arminell under her wing. Y011 have 
told Armie to be ready to start on Monday ? ” 

“Yes; I don’t understand the girl, whether she is in a 
sulk, or sofry for her misconduct.” 

“ Her boxes are being got ready,” said Lady Lamerton. 
“There is something in her manner that is uncomfortable. 
I have noticed it as well as you. When I speak about 
Lady Hermione, she says nothing, and leaves the room.” 

“ A plunge in London life will renovate her.” 

“ I trust so. She sadly needs renovation. The caldron 
of a London season differs from that of Pelias. The 
latter rejuvenated those dipped in it ; but the former 
matures.” 

“ Have you spoken to Arminell about going out with 
Jingles the other night ? ” 

Lady Lamerton shook her head. 

“No,” said his lordship, “I know it is of no use. Best 
say nothing. We must build our hopes on a diversion of 
her thoughts.” 

“Yes — ” Lady Lamerton mused, then heaved a sigh. 
“ Oh, Lamerton, what a muddle you have made ! Plow 
shall we manage a garden-party when we have the public 
swarming all about the place ? It is a contretemps l ” 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


HOW IT WAS CONTRIVED. 

Macduff did it. Macduff exerted himself over it, for 
Macduff was under a cloud, and endeavoured to disperse 
the cloud by the sunshine of amiability. Besides Macduff 
was a manager — would have made a superb station-master 
at Rugby, or President of the French Republic — any other 
office full of difficulty and conflicting elements would suit 
Macduff. He rose to the occasion. 

The day for the garden-party was delightful, and the 
park looked its loveliest, except in early spring and late 
autumn, wffien the buds of some and the fresh green of 
other trees were in all shades, or when the first frosts had 
touched the foliage with every hue of gold and copper. 
These, indeed, were the times when the park and woods 
were in most radiant beauty ; but now, with a soft and 
luscious haze over the distance, and a brilliant sun stream- 
ing light above all, it was very beautiful. 

The park and the house were abandoned to the sight- 
seers ; but the garden, terrace, and avenue were reserved 
for the guests. The orange house, now empty, because the 
trees had been brought forth to adorn the terrace, was de- 
corated and arranged for refreshments, or for a refuge in 
the event of rain. 

A military band was in attendance, and four lawn-tennis 
courts marked out, with boys in picturesque uniforms 


ARMINELL. 


273 


stationed about them, to return the balls that passed be- 
yond bounds. 

At the lodge gate instructions had been given that the 
coachmen should deposit the guests at the garden gates — 
handsome, scroll iron gates under an arch of Anglo-Italian 
architecture, on the pediment of which were emblazoned 
the arms, supporters, and coronet of the Lamertons. This 
gate afforded admission to the garden-terrace, and com- 
pletely shut off the more private part of the grounds from 
the park. But though the terrace was shut off from all in- 
trusion, it was not so completely closed as to prevent those 
without from seeing into it. Between the gate and the 
house was a low wall, with a railing on it. The windows of 
the state drawing-room looked out on the terrace, and a 
glass door with a flight of stone steps descended from the 
entrance hall to the terrace. The house was of the age of 
Elizabeth ; but one wing, that containing the state apart- 
ments, had been rebuilt or re-modelled in the reign of 
Queen Anne, so that it in no way harmonised with the rest 
of the house, though furnishing within a suite of noble and 
lofty apartments, cheerful, and a pleasing contrast to the 
somewhat sombre rooms, panelled with oak, or hung with 
tapestry in the older house. Orleigh was not one of those 
brick palaces that are found in the Midland and Eastern 
counties ; but it was commodious, venerable, and charm- 
ingly situated. 

The arrangements made by Macduff and sanctioned by 
my lady, worked harmoniously. To some of her guests the 
hostess mentioned the inconvenience to which she feared 
they would be subjected, and left them to tell the others 
a : out it, if they saw fit. 

The day was so bright that there was no occasion to go 
indoors. Lord and Lady Lamerton stood at a short dis- 
tance from the iron gates, ready to receive their guests, who, 
titer a first greeting, walked forward and allowed their hosts 

S 


274 


ARMINELL. 


to receive the next batch. They looked at the beds, th2 
oranges, the view ; and those who were enthusiastic about 
flowers found their way into the conservatories. Then 
the guests began to coagulate into knots and sets. The 
clergy herded together, and the sporting men graduated to- 
wards each other ; only the army men sought out and made 
themselves agreeable to the ladies. 

“ Where is Arminell ? ” asked Lady Lamerton, in an ir 
terval between the reception of guests. 

“ ’Pon my soul, Julia, I do not know.” 

“ She ought to be here — with us. She puts the obliga- 
tions of common courtesy from her as undeserving of at- 
tention.” 

“ I will send for her.” 

“No; best take no notice. She may appear presently. 
Here come the Cribbages.” 

“ My dear Lady Lamerton,” exclaimed the rector’s wife, 
running up, and in a gushing manner extending her hand. 
“ How bright and charming you look, in spite of all your 
worries. It is a marvel to me how you bear up under it all ; 
and to think of the audacity of Jingles ! the ingratitude, the 
presumption ! So he is turned out of the house, neck and 
crop ; and yet you look as fresh and smiling as if nothing 
had happened. How I do envy your placidity of temper.” 

Then, turning to Lord Lamerton, “ Really, my lord, you 
are an angel of good-nature to allow the public admission 
to your beautiful grounds twice a week, and put your§elf and 
your guests to annoyance to oblige them. I heard the par- 
ticulars from Mrs. Macduff. Come, Robert ” — this to her 
husband — “you must not detain our kind hosts. Don’t 
you see that the Calwoodleighs are coming? By the way, 
dear Lady Lamerton, where is Miss Inglett? Shall I find 
her on the terrace? What dress is she wearing? There 
are so many persons here that I may miss her among the 
throng. Which dress is it? The heliotrope or the amber?” 


ARMINELL. 


275 


She was drawn on by her husband, who saw that the 
Calwoodleighs were waiting to be received. “ Come along, 
Selina,” said the rector. “ I see the archdeacon yonder.” 

“I’m not going to be hurried, Robert,” answered Mrs. 
Cribbage. “ I must have another word presently with my 
lord. You may leave me if you like. You are not wont 
to be civil to your wife. Besides, I know why you want to 
be off. It is very fine pretending you have something to 
say t<? the archdeacon ; I know what is the attraction in that 
direction, his niece, Miss Lovat, whom some think pretty. 
But I don’t. Go and prance about the archdeacon and her, 
if you like.” 

The Calwoodleighs having gone forward, Mrs. Cribbage 
returned to her hosts, and said to Lord Lamerton : 

“ How good and kind it was of you, my lord, to put in 
an appearance at poor Archelaus Tubb’s funeral. I have 
no doubt the family were flattered by the extraordinary 
attention, and to be sure, what nasty, spiteful things have 
been said about your share in his death. Now, Robert, I 
will go with you and engage Miss Lovat whilst you talk to 
the archdeacon.” 

The arrival of the guests had in the meantime caused 
great satisfaction to the sight-seer , who had discussed and 
severely criticised the equipages. 

The meeting at Patience Kite’s cottage had been reported 
in the papers, the speech by Welsh given as he chose that 
it should be read, that of Saltren omitted altogether. 
Moreover, the county papers had announced the throwing 
open of the grounds on Saturday, and as this was a day of 
early closing, a good many townsfolk, mostly shopmen and 
shopgirls, took advantage of the occasion to come to Orleigh, 
and see the place where that notorious Lord Lamerton lived. 

They clustered about the garden gates, passing their com- 
ments on the arrivals, mostly disparaging, and expressed at 
times loud enough to be heard by those discussed. 


ARMINELL. 


276 

One or two parties arrived in hired conveyances. “ Them’s 
too poor to keep a carriage,” was the observation with which 
they were saluted. The rector and Mrs. Cribbage came on 
foot. “ These can’t afford a cab. Curate and his old house- 
keeper, won’t they eat ! ” 

By far the most stylish and astonishing was the equipage 
of Sir Bosanquet Gammon, the new high sheriff. Sir 
Bosanquet was a north-country man who had made a large 
fortune as a civil engineer. He was never able altogether 
to shake off his native dialect and to speak as an educated 
English gentleman. This was the more singular, as he 
asserted that the family was originally De Gammon, and 
had Plantagenet blood in it. His coat-of-arms on carriage 
and yacht was a patchwork of quarterings. That Plantagenet 
blood and fifty heiresses should not by their fused gentility 
have prevented Gammon from talking with a north-country 
twang was something to shake the foundations of Anthro- 
pology. 

Sir Bosanquet Gammon, being high sheriff, thought it in- 
cumbent on him to make a display, so he drove to Orleigh 
in a carriage with hammercloth, and powdered coachman 
and flunkeys. 

Giraldus Cambrensis, in his “ Topography of Ireland,” 
says that in Meath, near Foure, are three lakes, each occu- 
pied by a special kind of fish, and he adds that, although 
these lakes are connected, the fish of each lake keep to 
themselves, and should they venture into the lake inhabited 
by the finny tribe of another species, they would be so like 
fish out of water, that they would die, unless indeed they 
precipitately retreated to their former habitation. 

It also seemed at Orleigh this day that fish of three sorts 
were swimming about in three several ponds without as- 
sociation and amalgamation. Within the iron gates and 
rails were the red-fleshed salmon, by themselves, with 
interests in common, a common mode of speech, a common 


ARMINELL. 


277 


code of manner, and a common culture. Without the 
railings, yet within the park, were the common-place fish 
that understood and appreciated jokes which would have 
been insipid or vulgar to those within the railings, also with 
a common dialect, a peculiar twang and intonation of voice, 
and a common style of thought and cultural tone. 

Further away, outside the park gates and enclosure were 
fish of another quality altogether, the homely trout — the 
village rustics, the miners out of work — also with their 
peculiar modes of thought, their dialect, their prejudices, 
and their quality of. humour, distinct from the rest and 
special to themselves. 

How would one of the town fish have felt, had he been 
admitted within the gates? How one of the rustics, if 
associated with the shop-folk ? Each would have been un- 
easy, gasping, and glad to get back from such uncongenial 
society into his proper pond once more. 

When the last of the guests had arrived, Lord and Lady 
Lamerton left their reception post, and mixed with the 
company. The lookers-on outside the railings did not at 
once disperse. A policeman and a couple of keepers were 
on guard. The gates were closed, but the people insisted 
on peering through the bars and between the rails at the 
well-dressed gentle class within, and others scrambled up on 
the dwarf wall to obtain a better view, and were ordered 
down by the policeman only to reascend to the vantage 
point when his back was turned. 

“ I ain’t doing nothing,” remonstrated one of those re- 
quired to descend ; “ a cat may look at a king, and I want 
to see Lord Lamerton.” 

“ Come down at once.” 

“ But I came here o’ purpose.” 

“You can see the park and the pictures.” 

“ Oh, blow the park and pictures. I didn’t pay two- 
and-eight return to see them. I came here to see his lord- 


278 


ARMINELL. 


ship. So, Mr. Bobby, take him my card and compliments. 
I’m in the Bespoke Department at Messrs. Skewes.” 

“ You cannot see him. Come down at once.” 

“ But I must and will see the nobleman who has been so 
wicked, and has caused such wretchedness, who has tore 
down widows’ houses, and crushed the ’eads of orphans.” 

Then another man offered a cigar to one of the keepers. 

“ Look here, old man,” he said. “ Point his lordship 
out to me. I want to have a squint at him — a regular 
Judge Jeffries he is.” 

“ Talk of Bulgarian atrocities,” said another. “ They’re a 
song to these at Orleigh. Down with the House of Lords, 
says I, and let us have the enfranchisement of the 
soil.” 

“ It is all primogeniture does it,” said a third, “ there 
never ought to be no first boras.” 

In the innermost pond, meanwhile, the guests were 
swimming about and consorting. Mrs. Cribbage bore 
down on Lady Lamerton. 

“Do tell me, dear Lady Lamerton, where is Miss Ar- 
minell ; I have been searching for her everywhere. Don’t 
tell me she is ill. Though, perhaps, she has had occasion 
to feel upset. She really must be somewhere, but I am so 
short-sighted I have not been able to find her. Perhaps 
she is in a new dress, with which I am not acquainted.” 

“We are going to send her to town; her aunt, Lady 
Hermione Woodhead, has been so kind as to invite her, as 
we remain at Orleigh for the time, and do not think of 
being in town during the season. It would be a pity for 
Arminell not to see the Academy this year, and hear the 
Italian opera, and see some of our friends. So when Lady 
Hermione offered it, we accepted gladly.” 

“Very gladly, I am sure,” said Mrs. Cribbage with a 
knowing twinkle in her eye. “ But where is she now ? ” 

“ I cannot say, I have not looked lor her ; I have been 


ARMINELL. 279 

intent on receiving our friends. Here is Lady Gammon. 
I must be civil to her.” 

“ How propitious the weather is,” said the high sheriffe^s, 
“ and how gratified you must be, my lady, to see so many 
individuals about you in the plentitude of enjoyment.” 

There are persons, they belong to a certain social class, 
who always use a long word from the Latin when a short 
Anglo-Saxon one would do. 

“ What a superabundance of ministers, all, I perceive, of 
the Established Church ; but really, considering the high 
sheriff was to be here, they might have come in hats, in- 
stead of what is vulgarly called wide-awakes. Do you 
know, my lady, what it is that I really want of you ? Can 
you guess what the favour is that I am going to ask of you ? 
No — I am sure you cannot. Sir Bosanquet and I had a 
discussion together at breakfast relative to the polarisation 
of light, and I said to Sir Bosanquet — ” (within parenthesis be 
it noted that before the civil engineer was knighted, his 
wife always called him h lb or hubby ) — “ I said to Sir 
Bosanquet, ‘ my dear, we will refer the matter to her lady- 
ship who is a very learned lady, and she shall de- 
cide.’ ” 

“I!” answered Lady Lamerton, “ I really do not know. 
It has — that is — I believe it has — but really I have only the 
vaguest idea concerning it ; it has to do with the breaking 
up of a ray into its prismatic colours.” 

“ I knew it has to do with prismatic colours, and had no- 
thing to do with polar bears. Polar bears are white.” 

“ Thomson,” said Lady Lamerton aside to a footman, 
“ be so good as to send me Miss Inglett’s maid — to me 
here, on the terrace.” 

A few minutes later the lady’s-maid came to where my 
lady was standing ; she held a salver with a three-cornered 
sealed note on it. 

“ Please, my lady, Thomson said your ladyship ” 


28 o 


ARMINELL. 


“ Yes,” interrupted Lady Lamerton, tc what have you got 
there ? ” 

“ A note, my lady, Miss Inglett left on her dressing-table 
for his lordship, before she went.” 

“ Went ! ” 

“ Started, my lady, for town to Lady Hermione Wood- 
head’s. She said, my lady, she would write for me when 1 
was required.” 

Lady Lamerton took the note. It was addressed to her 
husband, but she hastily opened it. It contained these few 
lines only — 

“ Dear Papa, 

“ You said it would be best for you and for my step- 
mother, and for myself, if I went away for some time from 
Orleigh. I have gone— but not to Aunt Hermione. You 
can, of course, guess who accompanies me, one whom I 
trust ere long you will acknowledge as a son. 1 will write 
in a day or two. 

“ Yours ever, 

“ Arminell.” 

Lady Lamerton did not lose her presence of mind. 
“That will do,” she said to the maid, and went in quest of 
her husband. She showed him the letter and said in a low 
tone, “No time is to be lost ; go instantly, go yourself to 
Chillacot, and see if she be there. If not you can learn 
where he is. No one else can go. I will keep the company 
amused and occupied. Slip out by the gate at the end of 
the avenue and go over the down, no one will observe you.” 

Lord Lamerton nodded, and departed without a word. 
Presently up came Mrs. Cribbage again, “ I cannot find 
Miss Inglett anywhere,” she said. 

“ No, Mrs. Cribbage,” answered Lady Lamerton. “ How 
are you likely to when she is gone to town ? Did not I tell 
you that we had accepted Lady Hermione’s kind invitation? ” 


ARMINELL. 


28l 


“ But I did not understand she was gone. I thought she 
was going.” 

“ Surely you misunderstood me, Mrs. Cribbage ; here 
comes Sir Bosanquet.” 

“There now,” exclaimed Lady Gammon, sailing up with 
a flutter of silk, and a waving of lace fringe to her parasol 
“ There, I said so, Sir Bosanquet, polarisation of light has 
nothing to do with polar bears. I bought Plantagenet a 
box of the prismatical colours because they are warranted 
to contain no deleterious matter in them, should the dear 
child take to” — there was no Latinised word that would 
suit, or that she knew — “ to suck ’em.” 

“ Oh Lady Gammon,” said the hostess, “ I am so vexed 
that I cannot introduce to you my step-daughter, but she 
has been invited to her aunt’s, Lady Hermione Woodhead, 
and there is a Richter concert to-night — selections from 
Parzifal, which she ought not to miss.” 


CHAPTER XXX. 


HOW THE FISH CAME TOGETHER. 

Lady Lamerton did her utmost. She was lively, quite 
sprightly even. She moved among her guests with a pleasant 
smile and a courteous word for every one. The lawn-tennis 
courts were occupied by four sets of players. A cluster of 
young men and girls were at a table blowing soap bubbles, 
and finding fund for laughter in the process A group of 
their seniors were making a party for bowls. Some of the 
guests stood on the terrace looking down at the lawn-tennis 
players and pretending to take interest in the games. The 
majority of those present wandered about the gardens, 
shrubberies, and conservatories. 

A little hand was thrust into that of Lady Lamerton, and 
on looking down she saw Giles. 

“ Mamma, where is papa? I want to go with him.” 

“ He has had to leave, dear, for a few minutes ; he will 
return in perhaps half an hour.” 

“ But I can run after him. Where is he ? ” 

“You cannot follow him, Giles, he is walking fast, and is 
about something that your presence would disturb. Are 
there no little boys here for you to play with ? Yes, there 
are the two Fountaynes. I invited them expressly.” 

“ I do not want to play. I had rather walk with papa.” 

“But he would wish you to take the little boys and show 
them your pony. We cannot, my dear, always do what we 
like. We must bestir ourselves to make our guests happy.” 


ARMINELL. 283 

“Very well, mamma, I will go with the Fountaynes as 
papa wishes it.” 

He let go her hand, and went off. She looked affection- 
ately after the child for a moment, and then resumed her 
duties as hostess, with an anxious heart but an untroubled 
brow. 

From the first moment that our intelligence dawns, the 
first lessons impressed on us, lessons never pretermitted, 
from which no holiday gives release, relentlessly and syste- 
matically enforced, are those of self-suppression. We are 
not allowed as children even to express our opinions de- 
cidedly, to hate heartily any person or anything. We are 
required, for instance, to say nothing more forcible than — • 
we are not devoted to our governess, and not partial to 
bread-and-butter pudding. We are instructed either to keep 
silence altogether relative to our feelings, which is best of 
all, a counsel of perfection ; or if we cannot do that, to give 
utterance to them in an inoffensive and unobjectionable 
manner. We are taught to speak of a stupid person as 
amiable, and of a disagreeable person as well-intentioned. 
Our faces are not suffered to express what our tongues are 
not permitted to speak, consequently the facial muscles are 
brought into as complete control as the tongue. 

Consequently also when we are thoroughly schooled, we 
wear masks perpetually and always go about with gloved 
tongues. At first, in the nursery and in the schoolroom, 
there are kicks and sulks, when the mask and the glove are 
fitted on, and yet, in time, we become so habituated to them 
that we are incapable of conceiving of life as endurable 
without the wearing of them. 

I know that I have become so accustomed to a ring on 
my little finger, that if p. reliance I have forgotten it, and 
gone into society, I have blushed to the roots of my hair, 
and stammered and been distracted, thinking myself in- 
sufficiently clothed, simply because I had left my ring on 


284 


ARMINELL. 


the washhand-stand. And it is the same with our masks 
and gloves, we grow to like them, to be uncomfortable 
without them, to be afraid to show our faces or move our 
tongues when unprotected by mask and glove. 

A circus horse becomes so used to the bearing rein that 
even when he is allowed to gallop without one, he runs 
with arched neck. 

We are all harnessed from our cradle, with bearing reins, 
not only to give our necks the proper curve, but also to 
prevent us from taking the bit in our .mouths, kicking out, 
plunging over the barriers, and deserting the ring, and the 
saw-dust, the lights, and the crack of the manager’s 
whip. 

Round and round our ring we go, now at an amble, then 
at a canter, and at last at a gallop, but always under re- 
straint ; the only liberty allowed and taken is now and 
again to make our hoofs sound against the barriers, and to 
send a little sawdust in the faces of the lookers-on, who 
clap hands and laugh or scream. We dance in our arena 
to music, and spin about, and balance ourselves on pre- 
carious bases, take a five-barred gate at a leap, and go over 
a score of white poles, dexterously lowered to allow of a 
leap without accident. Then we fall lame, and lie down, 
and allow a pistol to be exploded in our ears, and permit 
ourselves to be carried out as dead. But whatever jump 
we make has been pre-arranged and laboriously practised, 
and whatever performance we be put through has been 
artificially acquired. We never snap our bearing rein, 
never utter a defiant snort, toss our heads, kick out at those 
who would detain us, and dash away to pastures green and 
free moorside. 

Possibly our happiness would be greater were we to 
burst away from the perpetual mill-round, but I know very 
well what the result would be. We would rapidly de- 
generate on the moorside into uncouth, shaggy creatures, 


ARMINELL. 


285 


destitute of gloss and grace, and forget all our circus 
manners. 

That which the grooming and breaking-in are to a horse, 
that culture is to a man, a sacrifice of freedom. The lower 
classes of men, the great undisciplined, or imperfectly dis- 
ciplined bulk of mankind look on at the easy motions and 
trained grace of the higher classes, with much the same 
puzzlement as would a cluster of wild ponies stand and 
watch the passing of a cavalcade of elaborately-trained 
horses. Both would be equally ignorant of the amount of 
self-abnegation and submission to rule which go to give 
ease and gloss. / / 

\ According to a Mussulman legend, the Queen of Sheba 
had some smack of savagery about her ; she had goat’s hair 
on her ankles. King Solomon heard this by report, and 
being desirous of ascertaining the truth, he had water 
poured over the pavement of his court when she came to 
visit him. As she approached she raised her skirt, and 
Solomon detected the goat’s hair. 

There are a good many men as well as women who 
appear in the best courts nowadays with hair about their 
hocks ; they have been insufficiently groomed. But in this 
they differ from the Queen of Sheba, that they persistently 
show us their hocks, and even thrust them in our faces. 
Merciful powers ! how many half-broken, ill-trimmed cobs 
I have met with, kicking up their undocked heels, showing 
us that they can jump over poles and overleap hurdles, that 
they can balance themselves on chairs, and dance and rear 
on their hind legs, and paw the air, and whinny for 
applause. We politely pat our palms, and look all the 
while, not at their antics, but at their hocks, not at all im- 
pressed with their silver and spangled trappings, but very 
conscious of the hair about their hoofs. 

It is the fashion for moralists to hold up their hands, and 
shake their heads, and declaim against the artificialities, the 


286 


ARMINELL. 


disguises of social life, and to say that every word spoken 
and look given should be sincere ; that men and women 
should scorn concealment and hate subterfuge. But — 
would the world be tolerable were it so constituted ? I 
mean the world of men. Is it so in the world of nature ? 
Is that above screens and disguises ? Is that ruthlessly 
true, and offensively genuine in its operations ? Where is 
there not manifest a desire to draw the veil over what is 
harsh and unbecoming ? The very earth covers her bald 
places with verdure, obscures her wounds, and drapes her 
ragged edges. So the function of culture is the softening 
of what is rough, the screening of what is unseemly, the dis- 
guising of all that may occasion pain. It is nothing else 
but charity in its most graceful form, that spares another at 
the cost of self. 

I have been in a volcanic region where there were in- 
numerable craters, great and small. Those on the plain, 
hardly rising above a few feet out of it, showed all their 
bare horror, their torn lips, their black throats, their sides 
bristling with the angular lava that had boiled out of their 
hot and angry hearts, long ago, but ever showing. They 
were perfectly genuine, expressing their true nature in ugly 
nakedness. But there were other volcanoes rising to 
mountain heights, and these had mantled themselves in 
snow, had choked and smoothed over their clefts, and hung 
garlands of silver, and dropped gauzy veils over their 
vitreous precipices ; the very craters, the sources of the fire, 
were filled to the brim and heaped up to overflow with un- 
sullied snow, rising white, rounded, innocent, as a maiden’s 
bosom. Which was best ? I know which was the pleasant- 
est to see. 

So is it with humanity. We are all volcanoes with fire 
in our hearts. Some have broken forth and torn themselves 
to pieces, some are in a chronic state of fume, and dribble 
lava and splutter cinders perpetually, and others are ex- 


ARMINELL. 


287 


hausted. Surely it is best to hide our fires, and drape our 
savagery, and bury our snags and dust the white snow over 
all that is rugged and gloomy and ungentle. 

Or — to revert to our former illustration, if we have hair 
on our heels, which is best, to expose it, or, like the Queen 
of Sheba, let down our skirts over it ? 

When our temper is ruffled, we do not fret with it those 
we meet — when our heart is bitter, we do not spit our gall 
in the faces of our friends — when our blood boils in our 
veins we ar.e careful to let none of it squirt on and blister 
the hand that is extended to us. A man may smile, and 
smile, and be a villain — that is true, but a man or a woman 
may smile, and smile, and be exceedingly sorrowful, may 
dance and laugh with an aching heart. Who does not re- 
member Andersen’s story of the little mermaid, who ob- 
tained from the witch power to shed her 1 squamous tail at 
the cost of feeling knives pierce her soles every footstep she 
took ? And the little mermaid danced at the prince’s wed- 
ding- -at the wedding of the prince whom she had once held 
to her heart, and for the love of whom she had shed her 
fish’s tail, and danced with a rosy face, though every step 
was a mortal agony. Do we not love and venerate the 
little mermaid, because, instead of howling or whining, and 
holding up her bleeding soles to extract commiseration from 
all, she dropped her skirts over them, and danced and 
warbled, and flushed as the rose, so that none supposed she 
leaped with pain, and sang to still her heart, and flushed 
with stress of anguish? So is it with all who have gone 
through the great discipline of culture ; they no more expose 
their wounds and cry out for sympathy than they expose 
deformities. 

I remember the bridge over the Gave at Pau, on each 
side of which through its entire length sat beggars exhibiting 
sores and soliciting alms. But these were men and women 
in rags, and those who wfcar only the rags of culture do the 


288 


ARMINELL. 


same, they draw aside their tatters and expose their wounds 
to our shocked eyes. 

But it is not so with such as have gone through the school 
and learnt its lessons. They are not for ever obtruding 
themselves, their worries, their distresses on every one they 
meet, their owu proper self with its torn veins, and festering 
grief, and distilling blood is folded over with silk, and a 
jewelled brooch clasps the lace over the swelling, suffering 
bosom, and all who see it admire the jewels and are kept in 
ignorance of what is beneath. In the primitive Church 
the disciplina arcani was enforced, the doctrine of holy re- 
serve taught ; for there were certain mysteries of which the 
faithful were required to keep the secret ; and culture, 
modern culture, has also its disciplina arcani , its doctrine of 
reserve, a reserve to be observed on all selfish pains and 
sorrows, a mantling over with a cloak of mystery everything 
which can jar with the pleasure and the cheerfulness and 
the brightness of the day to others. 

So, with a heart quivering with apprehension and racked 
with grief for Arminell, Lady Lamerton moved about the 
terrace with a placid face, and with her thoughts apparently 
engrossed wholly in making her guests at home and happy. 
She insisted on Sir Bosanquet Gammon and the rector playing 
at aunt Sally, whilst Lady Gammon looked on with a face 
green with horror. She brought a garden chair herself to 
old and tottery Mrs. Calwoodleigh, who was standing looking 
on at her daughter playing lawn-tennis. She found a timid 
little cluster of husband and wife and daughters, fresh arrivals 
in the neighbourhood, and knowing no one, and introduced 
them to a dozen nice families. She broke up a flirtation 
with a young officer, which she thought undesirable, by 
sweeping away with her the young lady into the orchid 
house to admire a clump of Dissa grandiflora . She inter- 
rupted a political discussion in the nick of time, before the 
parties became angry and personal. She singled out a little 


ARMINELL. 


289 


old maid outrageously dressed who was prowling about the 
flowers, and delighted her by presents of cuttings and little 
pots of bulbs, more than she could carry, but which the 
gardener was bidden convey to Miss Bligh’s carriage. She 
galvanised into life a drooping cluster of young and smooth 
parsons, and set them playing La Crosse with as many 
charming girls. She pointed out the tables where were 
claret and champagne cups, strawberries and cream, to 
certain thirsty and heavy souls which had been gravitating 
sideways in that direction for some time. She caught an 
antiquary, and carried him off to the end of the garden to 
show him a Romano-British stone with ogams nicked at the 
angle, which had been discovered used as a footbridge, and 
set up by Lord Lamerton to save it from destruction. 

“ Here, Mr. Fothergill, I must leave you to copy the 
inscription. Lady Gammon is anxious to have the polarisa- 
tion of light explained, and I must take her to the library 
for an encyclopaedia — fortunately the study to-day is not 
invaded by the public.” 

Behind her back many a remark was made on her excel- 
lence as a hostess, her cheerfulness, her amiability. Every 
one liked Lady Lamerton ; they could not fail to do so, she 
took such pains to make herself agreeable. Only Arminell 
despised her, and despised her for those very qualities which 
won to her the hearts of her acquaintances. Arminell 
thought her lacking in depth and sincerity. It was true 
that she was without intensity of conviction, but that was 
characteristic of breadth ; it was true that she was unreal, 
and that was part of her culture ; so to some folks everything 
is unreal but Zolaism, the Morgue, discourtesy, breach of 
good manners, the refuse heap. Man is unreal clothed in 
skin, the only genuine man is he who has been excoriated, 
with every nerve and muscle and vein exposed ; the canvas 
only is real, not the Madonna di San Sisto looking with her 
ineffably earnest eyes out of it ; lamp-black and treacle and 


290 


ARMINELL. 


old rags are the reality, not the Book of Psalm and Song, 
printed out of the former on the transubstantiated latter ; 
catgut and deal and brass only are real, not the symphony 
of Beethoven, not the march from the Kemenate in “ Lohen- 
grin,” played on the instruments manufactured out of these 
vulgar materials. The pelting rain is real, not the gilded 
evening cloud that contains the stored moisture; in a word, 
that only is real, and commendable, and to be observed, 
which is gross, material, offensive. I know that the sweet- 
ness and fragrance of that old culture which was but another 
name, as I have already said, for charity, is passing away, 
like the rising incense, perhaps again to be caught and 
scented only in the courts of heaven. I know that it is in 
fashion now to be rude and brusque, and to deny oneself 
no freedom, and exercise on oneself no restraint, so as to 
be quite natural. But what is that save to revert to social 
Adamanism and Bosjesmanism — to savagery in its basest 
and nastiest form- — to renounce the form as well as the 
power of culture. 

Phaedrus tells in one of his fables of an old woman who 
found an empty amphora of old Falernian wine ; she put 
her nose to the mouth and snuffed and said, “ If you smell 
' so sweet when void, how sweet you must be when full.” 

Well ! let us say that half the politeness and grace and 
charm of society is unreal. It is the aroma of the old 
Falernian. How much better, no doubt, if the vessel be 
full of that most precious old Falernian, that perfect 
courtesy of heart which suffereth long and is kind ; vaunteth 
not itself, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, believeth 
all things, loveth all things, endureth all things. But, I ask, 
is not an empty amphora of Falernian more grateful than 
one full of asafoetida ? 

The evening light slanted over the park, making the 
grass yellow as corn, and casting purple shadows behind the 
elms. The front of the house toward the terrace was 


ARMINELL. 


29I 


glorified, the plate-glass windows gleamed as if rolled out of 
sunlight. The terrace was alive with people in their gayest 
dresses, in light summer colours, pink and turquoise, straw- 
berry, spring green, crimson and cream. The band was 
playing, and the scarlet uniforms of the military formed a 
brilliant patch of colour at the end of the terrace against a 
bank of yews. 

Below the terrace -was the tennis-court, reached by a 
flight of several steps, and against the wall that upheld the 
terrace roses were trained, and were in masses of flower, 
scenting the air. 

The lawn-tennis ground formed a second terrace banked 
up from the park which sloped away rapidly thence to the 
winding river Ore. 

In the midst of the flower-beds and moving coloured 
kaleidoscope of figures on the gravelled terrace was a 
fountain and a basin. In the latter floated water-lilies, and 
gold fish darted, and carried off the crumbs cast to them. 
The water that leaped out of a triton’s shell was turned in 
the evening sun as it fell, into amethysts. 

Away, across the valley, stood the little church with its 
tower peeping out of limes, now all alight w r ith the western 
sun ; and the cock on its top was turned to a bird of fire. 

“ Hark ! ” exclaimed the rector, “ I hear our bell. 
Good heaven 1 Surely I’ve not forgotten — I did not know 
there was to be a funeral. I did not know any one was 
ill — in danger. It is tolling.” 

Then the band, which had rested for a moment and 
shaken the moisture out of their wind instruments, and 
cleared their throats with iced ale, came to attention as the 
conductor rattled his staff on the music-stand, and beat, one, 
two, three, four ! Then with a blast and crash and rattle — 

“ Se-e-e the conquer-ing her-er-er-er-er-o comes, 

Sou-ou-ound the trum-pets, 

Be-e-eat the drums.” 


292 


ARMINELL. 


At that moment, again, a little hand was thrust into that 
of Lady Lamerton, and again she saw her boy, Giles, at her 
side. He was looking pale, and was crying. 

“ What is the matter, Giles ? You are shivering. Have 
you taken a chill ? Go indoors, dear.” 

“ Mamma,” said the boy, “ I want papa. I have shown 
the Fountayne boys my pony and the horses, and my goat, 
and rabbits, whatever I thought papa would like them to 
see, and now I want papa. Where is papa ? ” 

“My dear, you must go indoors. What is that? In 
pity — what is going on ? Surely the public are not going 
to invade the terrace.” 

Yes — they were. 

A large party had been shown the state apartments, had 
looked at the pictures, tried the sofas, made jokes over the 
family portraits, attempted to finger the china, and then 
had assembled at the drawing-room windows which com- 
manded the terrace and the lawn-tennis courts. 

“ Seeing the ’ouse without the master, is like ’ Amlet with 
the part of ’Amlet left out,” observed one of the sight-seers. 
“ I say, flunkey, point us out the noble lord, and I’ll tip you 
a copper.” 

“ Gentlemen and ladies,” said the august butler, “ I 
must request that you will not press to the windows. It is 
time to move on. There is another party waiting to go 
over the house.” 

“ Ah ! but suppose we don’t choose to move on, Old 
Heavy? Ain’t the place open to us ? Was any time 
specified for us to be trotted out ? Show us the statute,” 
laughed a lawyer’s clerk. 

However, after some urging and remonstrance, the throng 
was got outside the state drawing-room, into the entrance 
hall. 

“I say, you coves!” shouted the young man from the 
bespoke department of Messrs. Skewes, “Follow me, and 


ARMINELL. 293 

I will get you a sight of his lordship and all the blue- 
blooded aristocrats below.” 

He led the way, and was followed at a run to the glass 
door opening upon the steps that descended to the terrace : 
the rush was so sudden that the butler had not time or 
thought to interpose. 

“ Hark ! ” called the lawyer’s clerk. “ By George, if the 
band ain’t doing us the compliment by anticipation of strik- 
ing up ‘See the* conquering hero comes !’w r hich means us — 
the British public. Lend a shove, Tommy, and we’ll be 
down among them and have some ices and sherry cobbler 
too, and take a squint at the noble lord himself.” 

A united thrust against the double glass doors drove them 
apart, and down the steps, and out upon the terrace poured 
the Public. 

At that same moment the iron gates were swung apart, 
and another party entered through them — not of the sight- 
seers, but villagers in their working clothes and shirt-sleeves. 

“ See-e-e the conquer-ing her-er-er-er-er-o comes, 

Sou-ou-ound the trum-pets, 

Be-e-eat the drums.” 

The conductor of the band looked round, and what he 
saw made him hold up his staff. The music instantly 
ceased. 

Also, simultaneously, all talking among the guests ceased. 

Also, instantaneously, the sight-seers who had been jostling 
one another, and laughing loudly, and egging one another 
on, and were pouring down the steps, halted and ceased to 
be heard. 

Nothing, indeed, w r as heard but the toll of the distant 
bell, and the crunch of the gravel under the feet of the, 
advancing party of villagers. 

The fish of the three ponds had mixed for once, and were 
silent in the presence of the all-conquering hero to whom all 
submit — Death. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


HOW IT CAME ABOUT. 

“ I wonder now,” said Mrs. Saltren to herself, “ whatever 
has made the raspberry jam so mouldy? Was the fruit wet 
when it was picked? I cannot remember. If it was, it 
weren’t my fault, but the weather on which no one can 
depend. I wanted to send up some to Tryphoena Welsh, 
but now I can’t, unless I spoon off the mould on the top 
of one and fill up from the bottom of another. It is a pity 
and a waste of confidence and a sapping of faith when one 
goes, makes jams, and spends coals and sugar and a lot of 
perspiration, and gets nothing for it but mould an inch thick. 
I must send Tryphoena Welsh something, for if Giles, as he 
tells me, has gone to take up with writing for the papers, 
he’ll need the help of James, and there’s no way of getting 
at men’s hearts but through their stomachs. It was tiresome 
Giles writing to my brother and not saying a word to me 
about it. I could have told him James was not in town, so 
no need for him to address a letter to him at Shepherd’s 
Bush; he went, after seeing us, to stay with one literary 
friend and then another, so he won’t have Giles’ letter till 
he returns to town. That accounts for my boy receiving no 
^answer. Giles never saw him when he was here, which was 
tiresome. It is vexing too about the hams. I’d have sent 
one up to James, if they had not been spoiled, along of the 
knuckles being outside the bags, so that the flies walked in 
as they might at a house door. I pickled those hams in 


ARMINELL. 


295 


ereacle and ale and juniper. I made paper bags for them, 
and what more could I do ? It was no fault of mine if the 
hams got spoiled. It was the fault of the hams being too 
big for my paper bags, so that the bone stuck out. And 
then the weather — it was encouraging to the flies. After 
the raspberry jam and the hams, one wants comfort. I'll 
get a drop.” 

But before she had reached the corner cupboard, the door 
opened, and her husband came in, looking more strange, 
white, and wild than ever. He staggered to the table, 
rolling in his walk as if he were drunk, and held to the 
lurniture to stay himself, fearing to take a step unsupported. 
His face was so livid, his eyes so full of something like terror, 
that a thrill of fear ran through Mrs. Saltren — she thought 
he was mad. 

“ What is it, Saltren ? Why do you look at me in that 
fashion ? I was not going to my cupboard for anything but 
my knitting. I said to myself, I will knit a warm jersey for 
Giles against the winter, and I put the pins and the wool in 
there. Now don’t look so queer: Are you ill?” 

“ Marianne,” he said slowly, then drew a long breath that 
sounded hoarsely in his throat as he inhaled it, “ Marianne, 
you are avenged.” 

“ What do you mean ? Are you referring to the hams 
or the raspberry jam ? ” 

“ Marianne,” he repeated, “ the word has come to pass. 
The hand has been stretched forth and has smitten the evil 
doer. The mighty is cast out of his seat and laid even with 
the dust.” 

“ I don’t know what you’re a-talking about, Stephen. I 
concern myself about common things, and about prophecy 
no more than I do about moonshine. The jams get mouldy 
and the hams ain’t fit to eat.” 

“ Did I not tell you, Marianne, of what I saw and heard 
that Sabbath day?” 


296 


ARMINELL. 


“ I gave no heed to it.” 

“ It is fulfilled. The purposes of heaven fulfil themselves 
in a wonderful and unexpected way when we are least 
awaiting it. He is dead.” 

“ Who is dead?” 

“ Lord Lamerton.” 

“ Lord Lamerton ! ” Marianne Saltren started. 

“ How is it that ? Where, Stephen,” and when ? ” 

“ He is lying dead beneath the cliff.” 

“ Good heavens ! How came that about ? ” 

“ He was cast down by the hand of an avenging justice. 
You have been avenged.” 

“ I — I have nothing to complain of — to have avenged on 
Lord Lamerton.” 

“Nothing of late, but you told me of the dishonour, of 
the wrong — ” 

Mrs. Saltren uttered a cry of horror. 

“Stephen, for God’s sake! — you do not mean? — you 
know, you know that I named no names.” 

“ I knew, Marianne, to whom you referred. I knew it at 
once. Then I understood why you gave your son the 
Christian name he bears.” 

“ Oh, Stephen, it was not that.” 

“Yes, Marianne, it was. It all hangs together. I saw 
how he, Lord Lamerton, was constrained to make much of 
the boy, to spend money on him, to educate and make a 
gentleman of him, and take him into his house.” 

“ Stephen ! Stephen ! this is all a mistake.” 

“ No, Marianne, it is no mistake. I see it all as plainly 
as I saw the angel flying in the midst of heaven bearing the 
Everlasting Gospel in his right hand, which he cast into the 
water before me.” 

“I was talking nonsense. Iam — Oh, Stephen! What 
did you say ? — he — Lord Lamerton is not dead ? ” 

“ He is dead. He is lying dead on the path.” 


ARMINELL. 


297 


Mrs. Saltren was seized with a fit of trembling, as if an 
ague were come over her. She stared at her husband, 
terror-stricken, and could not speak. A horrible thought, a 
sickening dread, had swept over her, and she shrank from 
asking a question which might receive an answer confirming 
her half-formulated fears. 

“ The judgment has tarried long, but the sentence has 
overtaken the sinner at last. . Now, after all, he has been 
made to suffer for what he once did to you. He cast you 
down, and with like measure has it been meted to him. 
He is cast down.” 

“ He did nothing to me.” 

“You are ready to forgive him now, and to forget the 
past, because you are a Christian. But eternal justice 
never forgets, it waits and watches, and when least ex- 
pected, strikes down.” 

“Oh, Stephen! What are you thinking of? You 
listened to my idle talk. You fancy that Lord Lamerton 
was — was the father of Giles, but he was not. Indeed, 
indeed, he was not.” 

“ He was not ! ” echoed the captain, standing stiffly with 
outstretched arms and clenched fists, a queer ungainly 
figure, jointless, as if made of wooden sticks. “ You your- 
self told me that he was.” 

“ I named no names. Indeed I never said he was — why, 
Stephen, how could he have been, when you know as well 
as I do, that he was out of England for three years at that 
time ; he was attache as they call it at the embassy in — I 
forget, some German Court, whilst I was at Orleigh with 
the dowager Lady Lamerton.” 

The captain stood still, thinking, as one frozen and fast 
to the spot. 

“ Besides,” put in the woman, with a flicker of her old 
inordinate vanity and falsehood, in spite of her present fear, 


298 


ARMINELL. 


“you think very bad of me if you suppose I’d have took uji 
with any one less than a viscount.” 

A long silence ensued, in which the tick of the clock 
sounded loudly and harshly. 

“ Marianne,” he said at last hoarsely. 

<c It is all your fault and stupidity,” said his wife hastily. 

You have no judgment, and a brain on fire with religious 
craze. If you would but behave like an ordinary, sensible 
man and think reasonably, you would never have fallen in- 
to this mistake. You had only to think a moment reason- 
ably, and you’d know that it was not, and could not be a 
man, and he only the honourable, and like to be no better 
than a baron, many hundred miles away at a foreign court, 
and the postage then not twopence ha’penny as ’tis 
now.” 

“ Marianne,” said Saltren again hoarsely, and he took a 
step nearer to her, and grasped her wrist. “ Marianne, 
answer me.” Saltren spoke with a wild flicker in his eyes 
as though jack-o-lanterns were dancing over those deep 
mysterious pools, “ as you will have to answer at the great 
day of account — is Giles not the son of Lord Lamer ton ? ” 

“ Of course not, I never said so. Who but a fool 
would suppose he was, and a week’s post and foreign 
languages between? He never left — Munich I think it 
was, but it may have been Munchausen, and I never left 
Orleigh all the three years. Besides — I never said it was. 
I named no names.” 

Now a shudder ran through Saltren, a convulsive quake, 
but it was over instantaneously. Then, with his iron hand he 
pressed the woman’s wrist downwards. 

“ Kneel,” he said, “ kneel.” 

“You are hurting me, Stephen ! let go !” 

“ Kneel,” he repeated, “ kneel.” 

He forced her from her feet to her knees, before him ; 
she was too frightened ,to disobey ; and her vain efforts to 


ARMINFXL. 


299 


parry reproof, and lay the blame on him, had been without 
success, he had not noticed even the mean evasions. 

“ Marianne,” he said solemnly, in his deepest, most 
tremulous tones. “ Tell me — who was the father of 
Giles ? ” 

“ That I will not — never — no, I cannot tell.” 

“ You shall, I will hold you here, with my hand clenched, 
and not let you go — No, never, not all the coming night, 
not all next day, all the night following — for ever, and ever, 
until you confess.” 

She stooped towards the floor, to hide her face from his 
searching eyes, with the lambent flame in them that 
frightened her. Then she looked furtively towards the 
window, and next to the door, into the back kitchen, seek- 
ing means of escape. 

“ It is vain for you to try to get away,” said the captain 
slowly. “ Here I hold you, and tighten my grasp, till you 
scream out the truth. They used to do that in England. 
They slipped the hands in iron gloves and the feet in iron 
boots, and screwed till the blood ran out of fingers and 
foot-ends, and the criminal told the truth. So will I screw 
the truth out of you, out of your hands. You cannot 
escape. Was the father of Giles a nobleman ? ” 

“ He was not the highest of all — not a duke.” 

“ What was he then ? ” 

She was silent, and strove to twist her hands away. He 
held both now. He compressed his clutch. She cried out, 
“ I cannot bear this.” 

“ What was his title ? ” 

“ You are hurting me, Stephen.” 

“•Was he a nobleman at all ?” 

With hesitation, and another writhe to get away — “ N— 
no.” 

“Then, all that story you told of the deception practised, 
upon you was a lie 0 ” 


300 


ARMINELL. 


“Not a lie — it was a joke. James was not such a fool 
as you, he took it as such. But you — ” 

Then Stephen Saltren drew his wife to her feet, and 
strode to the door, dragging her with him. She screamed. 
She supposed he was about to kill her ; but he turned, and 
said gloomily, “ I will not hurt you, I want to show you 
what you have done — with your joke ” 

He forced open the door, and drew her through the 
garden, out at the wicket gate, along the path, up the 
coombe. There was two ways thence to Orleigh Park, one 
down the coombe to the main valley and high-road, and 
round a shoulder of hill ; the other way by a steep climb up 
a zig-zag path in the side of the hill to the top of the crag, 
thence over a stretch of some thirty acres, of furzy down 
into the plantations and so into the park through them. 
The tortuous ascent began at the cottage, Chillacot, but 
Saltren drew his wife past the point whence it rose to where 
the evening sun cast the black shadow of the crag or 
“cleave” across the glen, and there — lying on broken, 
fallen stones, with his hands outstretched, his face to the 
clear sky, lay Lord Lamerton, dead. 

Marianne Saltren cowered back, she was too frightened 
by what she saw to care to approach ; but her husband’s 
vice-like grasp did not relax for all her weeping and en- 
treaties. He compelled her to come close to the fallen 
man. 

His finger ends buried themselves in her wrists, and 
checked her pulse, that her hands became numb, and 
tingled. 

He remained silent, for long, looking at the dead man, 
his own face scarcely less white, his muscles hardly less 
rigid, his features as set, and more drawn. There was no 
sunlight in the narrow valley where they stood under the 
great slate cleave, but above at the edge of the opposite hill 
were gorse bushes so covered with golden bloom that they 


ARMINELL. 


301 


seemed to be but one yellow flower, and on them the even- 
ing sun rested lovingly. Above, ghost-like in the blue sky, 
was a filmy disc — the moon, only perceivable from the deep 
valley, unseen by those who stood in the sunlight. The 
rooks were congregating in the wood at the bottom of the 
valley. That wood was a favourite resort to which the 
birds from several rookeries came every evening before set 
of sun, and chattered incessantly, and made as much noise 
as if they were members of the House of Commons discus- 
sing Irish matters. The sound issuing from that wood was 
strident like the rattle of a lawn-mower. 

A blue-bottle fly was buzzing round the dead man. Sal- 
tren saw it, it made him uneasy ; he let go one of his wife’s 
hands and with his disengaged hand drew his kerchief from 
his throat, a black silk one, and whisked it to and fro, to 
drive away the insect. “ I cannot tell,” he said, “ heaven 
knows. If it had not been for what you said, for your 
amusing joke, he might now be living. I cannot tell. The 
ways of Providence are dark. We are but instruments 
used, and not knowing for what purposes used. I cannot 
tell.” 

He put the kerchief to his face and wiped it. 

“ I was yonder,” he pointed upwards with his chin, and 
then whisked his kerchief in the direction of the top of the 
cliff. “ I was on the down, and when I least expected it, 
and at the moment when I was not thinking of him, I saw 
him striding towards me, and when he came up with me, 
he was out of breath. I was standing then at the edge of 
the cleave. I was looking down into the coombe at my 
house, and I was in a dream. When I saw him, I did not 
stir. I would not go to meet him. I let him come to me. 
And when I saw him turn out of his path and cross the 
down to me, then I knew the hand out of the clouds pointed 
the way, and he followed not knowing to what it pointed. 
He came close to me, to the very edge of the rock, and I 


302 


ARMINELL. 


did not budge one inch. He had been walking fast, and 
spoke pantingly, in a strangely mixed manner, and he asked 
some question about Giles. I do not remember what he 
asked, but at the sound of his voice and of that name, then 
the fire that was in my heart broke out, and I was blind 
and mad. My blood roared in my ears and head, as the 
sea roars and beats against the coast in a gale. Then I 
shouted out all I knew ; I told him that Giles was his son, 
and that God would call him to account for his sins and his 
injustice and cruelties; and he was as one amazed, that 
neither spoke nor moved till I raised my hand to strike 
him on the breast to rouse him to answer, and then before 
ever I touched him, he stepped back and went over the 
cleave.” 

Then Marianne Saltren uttered a piercing shriek and 
tossed, and put her teeth to her husband’s hand to bite at 
the fingers and force them to relax their grasp. 

“ There are people coming,” she screamed, “ I will tell 
them all that you killed him. Let me go. I cannot bear 
your touch.” * 

“ You accursed woman, you daughter of the old father of 
lies,” said Saltren between his teeth, and the bubbles formed 
in his mouth as he spoke through his teeth, “ I will not let 
you go till you have told me who was the father of Giles.” 

Suddenly, however, he let go her wrist, but she had her 
liberty for a moment only. He had drawn his black silk 
neckerchief round her throat, and twisted the ends about 
his fingers under her chin. 

“ Marianne, I killed him. Yet not I. I am but the ex- 
ecutioner under Providence. What heaven judges that I 
carry out. And now I do not care if I kill you, after I 
killed him. I will kill you, I will strangle you, unless you 
confess who was the father of Giles.” 

He was capable of doing what he threatened. 

“ It were best for you,” he said, “ wicked woman, to 


ARMINELL. 


3°3 


suffer here a little pain, than burn eternally. Confess, or I 
will send you into the world beyond.” She was quiet for a 
moment, desisting from her useless struggle. 

“You will release me if I say ? ” 

“ I will do so.” 

“ He was a wonderfully handsome man then, a very fine 
fellow, the handsomest I ever saw.” 

“ Who was he ? ” 

“ There were others besides me lost their hearts to him.” 

“ Who was he ? ” 

“ I hear voices below the house. People are coming. 
You will be taken and hung because you killed him.” 

“ Who was he ? ” 

Saltren did not move a muscle. “ Let them come, and 
they will find you dead also, beside him.” 

“ You cannot judge of what he was by what he is now.” 

“ His name ? ” 

Again she looked to right and left, in spite of the grip 
under her chin, and made a start to escape, but instantly 
he tightened the kerchief and she became red as blood. 

“ Marianne,” said Saltren. “ His name? ” 

He relaxed the pressure. She listened, no — she heard 
no voices, only mingled cawing of rooks and thumping of 
pulses in her ears. 

“ If you must know ? ” 

“ I must.” 

“ It was — Samuel Ceely.” 


CHAPTER XXXTT. 


A PLACE OF REFUGE. 

He thrust her away from him with an exclamation of dis- 
gust. Then he stooped. A tuft of meadow-sweet grew 
among the stones where the dead man lay, and its white 
flowers were full of pollen, md the pollen, shaken from 
them, had fallen, and formed a dust over the upturned face. 

Captain Saltren drew his black silk kerchief over the dead 
man’s brow, and wiped away the powder, and as he did so 
was aware that the blue-blottle had returned ; he heard its 
drone, he saw its glazed metallic back, as it flickered about 
the body. Then he turned and went away, but had not 
gone far before he halted and came back, for he thought of 
the insect. That fly teased his mind, it was as though it 
buzzed about his brain, then perched and ran over it, 
irritating the nerves with its hasty movement of the many 
feet, and the tap of its proboscis. He could not endure 
the thought of that fly — therefore he went back, and stood 
sweeping with his kerchief up and down over the face and 
then the hands, protecting the body against the blue-bottle. 

He heard his wife running away, crying for help. He 
knew that before long she would have collected assistants 
to come to remove the dead body. They would find him 
there ; and was it safe for him to be seen in close proximity 
to the man he had killed ? 

He knew that he ought to go. He had a horror of being 
there, alone with the corpse. Again he took a few steps to 


ARMINELL. 


3°5 


leave it, but, looking back over his shoulder, he saw the 
blue-bottle settle on the forehead, then run down along the 
nose to the lips of the dead man^ and he went back to 
drive the creature away once more. Presently he heard 
voices, not those now of cawing rooks, but of men. But 
he could not stir from the place. He would be committing 
a sin, an unpardonable sin, a sin from which his soul could 
not cleanse itself by floods of penitential tears, were he to 
allow the blue-bottle to deposit its eggs between those dead 
lips. His mind was unsettled. Now and then only did he 
think of himself as endangered, and feel an impulse to 
escape ; and yet the impulse was not strong enough to 
overcome his anxiety to protect the body. He did not 
consider the future, whether he had occasion to fear for 
himself, whether he would be put on his defence. 

After a flood we find backwaters where promiscuous 
matter drifts in circles — straw, snags of wood, a dead sheep, 
a broken chair ; so was it in the mind of Stephen Sallren. 
His ideas were thrown into confusion ; thoughts and 
fancies, most varied and incongruous, jostled each other, 
without connection. The discovery that his wife had lied 
to him in the matter of the parentage of Giles and the guilt 
of Lord Lamerton, following on the excitement in which he 
had been through the encounter with his enemy, had sufficed 
to paralyse his judgment, and make his thoughts swerve 
about incoherently. 

He was aware that he had committed a great mistake, he 
knew that his position was precarious ; but his confidence 
in his vision, and the mission with which he was entrusted 
remained unshaken, and this confidence justified to his 
conscience the crime that he had committed, if, indeed, he 
had committed one. But in the gyration of thoughts in his 
brain, only one fact stood out clearly — that a blue-bottle fly 
menaced the corpse, and that it was his duty to drive ti e 
insect away. 


u 


ARMINELL. 


3°6 

He was engaged on this obligation, when a hand touched 
him, and on looking round he saw Patience Kite. 

“ Captain Saltren,” said the woman, “ why are you here ? 
I saw you both on top of the cleave, and I do know that 
he did not fall by chance. I will not tell of you.” 

He looked at her with blank eyes. 

“ Others may have seen you besides myself. You must 
not be found here.” 

“ I am glad,” said he, dreamily, talking to himself, not to 
her, “ I am glad that I had, myself, no occasion against 
him. I thought I had, but I had not.” 

“Come with me,” said Mrs. Kite, “folks are near at 
hand. I hear them.” 

He looked wistfully at the dead face. 

“ I cannot,” he said. 

“ What ! Do you want to be taken by the police ? ” 

“I cannot — 1 am held by the blue-bottle.” In a moment 
she stooped, snapped her hands together and caught the 
fly. 

“ Now,” said Saltren, “ I will follow. It was not I, I am 
but the miserable instrument. The hand did it that brought 
him my way, that led him to the edge, and that then laid 
hold of my arm.” 

Patience caught him by the shoulder and urged him 
away. 

“ You must not be seen near the body. Take my advice 
and be off to Captain Tubb about some lime, and so estab- 
lish an alibi.” 

Saltren shook his head. 

“ If not, then come along with me. I will show you a 
hiding-place no one thinks of. Folks could not tell how to 
take it, when they didn’t find me lying buried under the fallen 
chimney ; but when I saw it was cracking, I made off 
through the dust, and none saw me escape. At the night- 
meeting some thought, when I stood on the table behind 


ARMINELL. 


3°7 


you, that I was a spirit. You can feel my grip on your 
arm, that I am in the flesh and hearty. I set fire to the 
tumbled thatch. It does good to scare folks at times.” 

She drew Saltren into the wood. From a vantage point 
on the other side of the valley from that of the crag, them 
selves screened from sight, they could see a cluster of men 
about the dead body of Lord Lamerton, and Mrs. Saltren 
gesticulating behind them. 

“ I wonder,” said Patience Kite, “ whether that wife of 
yours be a fool or not? Your safety, I reckon, depends on 
her tongue. If she has sense, she will say she found the 
dead lord as she was going to fetch water. If she’s a fool 
she’ll let out about you. Did any one see you on the 
down?” 

“ I think Macduff went by some time before.” 

“ Yes — I saw’n go along. That was some while afore.” 

Saltren said nothing. He was less concerned about his 
own safety than Mrs. Kite supposed. He was intently 
watching the men raise the dead body. 

“ It is a pity,” pursued Mrs. Kite, “ because if you hadn’t 
been seen by Mr. Macduff, I might have sworn you a famous 
alibi, and made out you was helping me to move my furni- 
ture. Thomasine also, she’d ha’ sworn anything in reason 
to do you a good turn. What a sad job it was that you 
didn’t chuck over Macduff as well. But there — I w r on’t 
blame you. We none of us, as the parson says, do all those 
things we ought to do, but leave undone what we ought. 
Thomasine and I’d swear against Mr. Macduff, but I doubt 
it would do no good, as Mrs. Macduff keeps a victoria and 
drives about in it, and we don’t, so the judge w 7 ould have 
respect to the witness of Macduff and disregard ours. And 
yet they say there is justice and righteousness in the world ! — 
when our testimony would not be taken and Macduff’s ac- 
cepted, along of a victoria.” 

She caught Saltren’s arm again, and led him further into 


ARMINELL. 


3°S 

the wood, along a path that seemed to be no path at all for 
a man to walk, but rather a run for a rabbit. The bushes 
closed over a mere track in the moss. 

“ I reckon,” muttered Patience, “ there’ll be a rare fuss 
made about the death of his lordship ; but how little account 
was made of that of young Tubb. That was a cruel loss to 
Thomasine and me. My daughter and he were sweethearts. 
Captain Tubb was going to take the boy on as a hand at 
the lime quarry ; he could not earn twenty shillings in a 
trade, so he would get fifteen as a labourer. Well — he 
could have married and kept house on that. Either he and 
my girl would have lived with me or with his father. Macduff 
and Lord Lamerton spoiled the chance for me and them. 
I owe them both a grudge, and I thank you for paying off 
my score on his lordship. Macduff may wait. In fall I 
will make a clay figure of him and stick pins in it, and give 
him rheumatic pains and spasms of the heart. Whatever 
parsons and doctors may say, I can do things which are not 
to be found in books, and there is more learning than is got 
by scholarship.” 

Mrs. Kite paused and looked round. 

“ You’ve not been about in the woods, creeping on all 
fours as I have, through the coppice. I know my way even 
in the dark. I can tell it by the feel of the stems of oak. 
Where there is moss, that is the side to the sou’-west wind 
and rain. The other side is smooth. So one can get along 
in the dark. What a moyle there will be over the death of 
his lordship all because he was a lord, and there was nothing 
made of the death of Arkie, because he was nobody. 
There is no justice and righteousness in the world, or Mr. 
Macduff would be wearing bracelets now and expecting a 
hempen necklace. Here we are at my cottage that he and 
his lordship tore down.” 

They emerged suddenly on the glade where stood the 
ruins. No one was visible. It remained as it had been 


ARMINELL. 


309 

left, save that the fallen rafters and walls were blackened by 
the smoke of the up-flaming thatch. 

Patience did not tarry at ihe hovel, but led the way to the 
quarry edge. 

“Do you see here,” she said, “you take hold of the ivy 
ropes, and creep along after me. It is not hard to do when 
you know the w T ay. Miss Arminell first led me to the Owl’s 
Nest. One Sunday she came here, and holding the ivy, 
got along to the cave, and then let go the rope. I went 
after her ; and when my house was being pulled down 
about my head, then I remembered the cave, and went to it 
in the same way. Since then I have moved most of my 
things I want, and Thomasine has helped me. But she 
couldn’t come till her foot was better, along the edge where 
we shall go. What I cannot carry we let down from above 
by a rope, and I draw them in to me with a crooked stick. 
I shall have to pay no ground rent for that habitation, and I 
defy Mr. Macduff to pull the roof down on me. It is a tidy, 
comfortable place, in the eye of the sun. What I shall do 
in winter I cannot tell, but it serves me well enough as a 
summer house. If I want to bake, I have my old oven in 
the back kitchen. Now lay hold of the ivy bands and 
come after me. I will show you where you can lie hid 
when there is danger at Chillacot.” 

Saltren followed her, and in a few minutes found himself 
in the cave. She had hung an old potato sack halfway 
down the hollow, and behind this she had made her bed 
and stored her treasures. 

“ No one can visit me whom I do not choose to receive,” 
said Mrs. Kite. “ If I should see a face come round the 
corner, the way we came, I’d .have but to give a thrust, as 
that you gave his lordship, and down he would go. Now I 
will return. You remain here. See*, 1 crook the ivy chains 
over this prong of rock when I am here. Whatever you do, 
mind and do not let the chains fall away. If you do, you’re 


ARMINELL. 


310 

a prisoner till I release you. That is how Miss Arminell 
was caught. I’ll run and see what is going on, and bring 
you word.” 

The old woman unhooked sufficient strands of ivy to 
support herself, and went lightly and easily along the face 
of the rock. 

Saltren remained standing. He had his hands linked 
behind his back, and his head projecting. He had not re- 
covered balance of mind ; his thoughts were like hares in 
poachers’ gate-nets — entangled, leaping, turning over, and 
working themselves, in their efforts after freedom, into more 
inextricable entanglement. But one idea gradually formed 
itself distinctly in his mind — the idea that he had not been 
wronged by Lord Lamerton in the way in which he had sup- 
posed, and that, therefore, all personal feeling against him dis- 
appeared. But, in the confusion of his brain, he carried back 
this idea to a period before he discovered that he had been 
deceived by his wife into feeling this grudge, and he justified 
his action to himself ; he satisfied himself that there could 
have been no private resentment in his conduct to his lord- 
ship when he lifted his hand against him, because twenty 
minutes later he discovered that there were no grounds for 
entertaining it. This consideration sufficed to dissipate the 
first sense of guilt that had stolen over him. Now he knelt 
down in the cave, at its entrance, and thanked heaven that 
no taint of personal animosity had entered into his motives 
and marred their purity. It was true that Lord Lamerton 
had thrown Saltren out of employ — he forgot that. It was 
true also that, as chairman of the board of directors of the 
railway, he had sought to force him to surrender his house 
and plot of land — he forgot that. It was true that at the 
time when he confronted Lord Lamerton, he believed that 
his domestic happiness fiad been destroyed by that noble- 
man — he forgot that also. He concluded that he had put 
forth his hand, acting under a divine impulse, and exe- 


Arminell. 3 1 1 

cuting, not personal vengeance, but the sentence of 
heaven. 

When a camel, heavy laden, is crossing the desert, the 
notion sometimes occurs to it that it is over-burdened, that 
its back is breaking, and it sullenly lies down on the sand. 
No blows will stir it — not even fire applied to its flanks ; 
but the driver with much fuss goes to the side of the beast, 
and pretends to unburden it of — one straw. And that one 
straw he holds under the eye of the camel, which, satisfied 
that it has been sensibly relieved, gets up and shambles on. 
Our consciences are as easily satisfied when heavy bur- 
dened as the stupid camel. One straw — nay the semblance, 
the shadow of a straw — taken from them contents us ; we 
rise, draw a long breath, shake our sides, and amble on our 
way well pleased. 

Lord Lamerton had been doomed by heaven for his guilt 
in the matter of Archelaus Tubb. Was it not written that 
he who had taken the life of another should atone therefor 
with his own life ? Who was the cause of the lad’s death ? 
Surely Lord Lamerton, who had ordered the destruction of 
the cottage. If the cottage had been left untouched, the 
chimney would not have fallen. Mr. Macduff was but the 
agent acting under the orders of his lordship, and the 
deepest stain of blood rested, not on the agent^ but on his 
instigator and employer. Saltren had been on the jury when 
the inquest took place, and he had then seen clearly where 
the fault lay, and who was really guilty in the matter ; but 
others, with the fear of man in them, had not received his 
opinion and consented to it, and so there had been a mis- 
carriage of justice. 

If a bell-pull be drawn, it moves a crank, and the crank 
tightens a wire, and that wire acts on a second lever, and 
this second crank moves a spring and sets a bell tingling. 
The hand that touches the bell-rope is responsible for the 
tingling of the bell, however far removed from it. So was 


312 


ARMINELL. 


Lord Lamerton responsible for the death of Archelaus, 
though he had not touched the chimney with his own 
hand. 

Saltren was, moreover, deeply impressed with the reality 
of his vision, which had grown in his mind and taken 
extraordinary dimensions, and had assumed distinct outline 
as his fancy brooded over it. But it did not occur to his 
mind that fancy had deceived him, for to Saltren, as to all 
mystics, the internal imaginings are ever more real than 
those sensible presentiments which pass before their eyes. 

Now he knelt in the cave, relieved of all sense of wrong- 
doing, and thanked heaven for having called him to 
vindicate its justice on the man whom human justice had 
icquitted. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 


NOTHING. 

Mr. James Welsh occupied a small, respectable house in 
a row in Shepherd’s Bush. The house was very new ; the 
smell of plaster clung about it. Before the row were 
young plane trees, surrounded with wire-netting to pro- 
tect their tender bark from the pen-knives and pinching 
fingers of boys. Far in the dim future was a prospect of 
the road becoming an umbrageous avenue ; accordingly, 
with an eye to the future, those who had planned and 
planted the row entitled it The Avenue. 

Up this avenue of wretched, coddled saplings walked 
Mr. Giles Inglett Saltren, in the best of spirits, to visit his 
uncle, the Monday morning after his arrival in town. 

Now Giles Inglett Saltren was about to begin his career 
as a journalist, as a politician, as a man of letters. He 
had broken away from the position which had degraded 
and enslaved him, which had cramped his genius, and sup- 
pressed his generous emotions. 

He had not. indeed, heard from Welsh since he had 
written to him, but youth is sanguine. He could rely on 
his uncle finding him work, and he knew his own abilities 
were of no ordinary quality. He had essayed his powers on 
several political questions. He had written articles on the 
Eastern Embroglio, the Madagascar Policy of the French 
Republic, Port Hamilton, the dispute about the Fisheries, 


3M 


ARM1NELL. 


and Irish dissatisfaction. Very vigorous they were in style, 
and pulverizing in argumentative force. 

He had not sent them to his uncle, but he brought them 
with him now in a hand-bag. He came early to ensure 
finding Mr. Welsh at home and to allow time for read- 
ing his articles to him, and discussing the terms on which 
he was to be taken upon the staff of the paper with which 
his uncle was connected. He figured to himself the ex- 
pression of the face of Welsh changing, as he listened from, 
incredulity to pleased surprise and rapt ecstasy, and the 
clasp of hands when the lecture was over, the congratulation 
on success, and the liberal offer of remuneration that would 
ensue. 

There was one telling passage on Port Hamilton which to 
Jingles’ mind was so finely turned, so rich and mellow in its 
eloquence, that he repeated it twice to himself as he walked 
from Shepherd’s Bush station to his destination. 

“ It is really well put,” mused Jingles ; “ and I think if it 
comes under the eye of the Ministry, that it must materially 
affect their policy, and, perhaps, decide the question of the 
retention or surrender of the station. More wonderful 
things have happened than that it should lead to my being 
offered a colonial appointment. Not that I would accept a 
post which was not influential. I am not going to be 
shelved as a foreign consul. I intend to be where I can 
put my mark on my times, and mould the destinies of the 
people. It would not be surprising were the Conservative 
Government to endeavour to silence me by the offer of some 
governorship which would take me from home, and corner 
me where my influence would be powerless. But I intend 
to keep my eyes open. I am not one of the men who sub- 
mit to suppression. Ah ! here is Uncle James’ door.” 

He opened the little iron gate. A servant was on the 
steps, kneeling and scrubbing the threshold. She had 
managed to kneel on her apron, and tear it out of the 


ARMINELL. 


3 T 5 


gathers. Her slippers exposed a split over the toe, showing 
stocking, and the stocking was split over the heel, showing 
skin. She put her scrubbing-brush to her head to smooth 
the hair that had fallen forward, over the fringe. 

“ Is Mr. Welsh at home ? ” 

“ Yes’ir. Your card, please? ” 

She looked at her fingers ; they were wet, so she put them 
beneath her apron, and extended her hand thus covered to 
receive the card, and nipped it through the integument of 
coarse linen, then turned and went in, leaving Saltren on the 
doorstep with the bucket. The soap she had prudently re- 
moved within, lest, while she was presenting the card, he 
might make off with the square. She was up to the dodges 
of such chaps. So, also, she shut the door behind her, lest 
lie should make off with an overcoat or umbrella. A 
servant cannot be too careful in the suburbs of London. 
Presently she returned, re-opened the door, and asked 
Saltren to kindly step into the master’s study. 

Mr. James Welsh was just engaged in unfolding his 
morning’s paper preparatory to reading, or, rather, skimming 
it, when Jingles entered. 

‘ s Hallo, young shaver ! ” exclaimed the uncle, laying 
aside the newspaper somewhat reluctantly. “ This is sharp 
work, dropping in on me before I have had time allowed 
me to answer your letter. I only came home last night. 
It is like crossing the frontier simultaneously with declara- 
tion of war. If you had waited for my answer you would 
have saved yourself trouble and the cost of your ticket.” 

“ There were reasons which made it necessary for me to 
leave at once.” 

<( My dear boy, reasons are like eggs in a recipe for a 
pudding. The pudding is best with them ; but it is good 
without. You wanted to come, and you enrich your com- 
ing with reasons. That is the sense of it.” 

“ But, Uncle James, I have long felt a decided vocation 


3 l6 


ARMINELI/ 


for a political and literary life, and 1 have long chafed at the 
restraints ” 

“Young shaver, in the ministerial world — I mean the 
world of ministers of religion — there are also calls ; but, 
curiously enough, only such are listened to when the call is 
from a salary of fifty to a hundred and fifty. I never yet 
heard of a pastor who listened to a call to leave one of a 
hundred for one of half that amount. But they jump like 
frogs when the call is t’other way. You should have learned 
wisdom from those apostles of light. You have, I fear, 
thrown up a lucrative situation for nothing. Like the dog 
in the fable, dropped the piece of meat to bite at a shadow.” 

“ I have no doubt,” said Jingles gravely, “ that at first I 
shall not earn much ; but I have some money laid by which 
will serve my. necessities till I have made myself a name, 
and got an assured income.” 

“ Made yourself a name ! That is what no journalist 
ever does. Got an assured income ! That comes late. 
You have not been through the mill.” 

“ I have in my bag some articles I have touched off, 
leaders on important matters, of absorbing interest to the 
oublic.” 

“ As what ? ” 

“ Port Hamilton.” 

“ The public don’t care a snap about that.” 

“ The Eastern Question.” 

“ About which you know nothing.” 

“ The Irish Land Question.” 

“ On which you are incompetent to form an opinion.” 

“ Will you look at my articles ? ” 

“ I can’t say. I can tell what they are like without your 
opening the bag. I know exactly the style of these school- 
boy productions. If you particularly desire it, I will run 
my eye over them ; but I tell you beforehand, they are 
good for nought. Mind you, I don’t expect that a writer 


ARMINELL. 


31 ? 

of a leader knows any more of his subject than do you; but 
he does know how to affect a knowledge he does not pos- 
sess, and disguise his ignorance ; and he has a certain style 
that belongs to the business. It is with journalism as with 
acting. An amateur proclaims himself in every sentence. 
The ass’s ears project from under the lion’s skin. There 
are little tricks of the trade, a margin for gag, that must be 
employed and utilised, and only a professional is at his 
ease, and has the familiar tricks at his disposal, and gag at 
the end of his tongue. Can you manage shorthand ? ” 

“ Shorthand ! No.” 

“ Pity that. I might have got you some reporting jobs.” 

“ But I do not want reporting jobs.” 

“ Then you will get nothing.” 

Jingles was rather offended than cast down. 

“ I see what it is, Uncle Welsh,” he said in a tone of irri 
tation, “ you journalists are a close corporation, and you 
will not admit an intruder. You are jealous of an invasion 
within your circle, just as a parcel of commercials resent 
the entry of any but a commissioned bagman into their 
coffee-room.” 

“ Not a bit ; but we do object to a raw bumpkin who 
has not gone through his apprenticeship giving himself airs, 
and pretending an equality with us who have drudged at 
the trade till we have mastered its technicalities.” 

“ I presume that a good education and brains qualify a 
man to write.” 

“ Not necessarily — certainly not to write leaders. I dare 
say we might hand over to you the reviewing of children’s 
books. That would come within your range.” 

“ It is an insult to offer such a thing.” 

“Indeed! You know little of literature or you would 
not say so. Formerly, when education was scarce, there 
were but a few writers, and they were well paid. Now edu- 
cation is universal, and every one. who can handle a pen 


ARM I NELL. 


3 l8 

thinks he can write, even if he be imperfectly acquainted 
with spelling. Education now is as common, as general, as 
pocket-handkerchiefs. Both were luxuries fifty years ago. 
Literature is glutted with aspirants ; brain is as common as 
aesthetic colours, as embroidered sunflowers, and Japanese 
lacquer. What is rare is muscle. Learn some mechanical 
art, and you will find biceps pay better than brain.” 

“ You know very well I have not the health to adopt the 
trade of an artisan.” 

“Then become a preacher; and here let me give you 
advice. If you want to become a popular preacher, and a 
power in the pulpit or on the platform, tear down. It is 
thankless work to build up ; that takes time, demands 
patience, and does not command immediate popularity and 
ready applause. You appeal to no passion when construc- 
tive. Passion is your assistant in destruction. Every man 
has so much of the savage in him that he likes the war-path 
and the taste of blood. You appeal to what you know is 
in all, when you give a war-whoop, and brandish a toma- 
hawk. There is some picturesqueness and a sense of 
power, in whooping and whirling the axe ; there is only 
prose in smoking calumets of peace.” 

“ I have no fancy for the pulpit ; but I should like to 
become a political speaker.” 

“ We can try you at some village meeting ; but the pay 
is not much. Take my advice and return to Orleigh.” 

“ That is impossible. I have burnt my ships. I can 
never recross the threshold of the house till I am recog- 
nised.” 

“What — as a literary lion ? As a stump orator?” 

“ No, uncle, as Lord Lamerton’s son.” 

“ As — as his — what ? ” 

Mr. James Welsh burst into a fit of laughter, and when 
he was exhausted, exploded, in spite of exhaustion, into a 

second peal 


ARMINELL. 


319 


Jingles maintained his gravity. His brow contracted. 
He folded his arms across his breast, and stood sternly 
waiting till this unseemly ebullition of merriment had sub- 
sided, in the attitude in which Napoleon appears in Horace 
Vernet's celebrated picture, on Saint Helena, looking at the 
setting sun. 

“You must excuse me,” said he at last, “if I say that 
this is not the way in which I expected to be received. 
First you scoff at my honourable ambition to be a man of 
letters, and then you explode into indecent laughter when I 
mention the fact of my parentage with which you are per- 
fectly familiar, though it is not known to the world at large.” 

“ By Jove, Giles, I did not suppose you were such a 
fool.” 

“ I do not understand you.” 

“ I may say, Giles, that I do not understand you. Do 
you mean seriously to assure me that you give credence to 
that cock-and-bull tale ? ” 

“ Uncle Welsh, I believe my mother’s word.” 

“ Far be it from me to say anything to a son disrespectful 
of his mother ; and in this case I merely point out to you 
the richness and exuberance of your mother’s fancy. Pene- 
lope embroidered by day, and- by night unpicked her day- 
work. My dear boy, it is, perhaps, a matter of regret that 
my sister contents herself with embroidery, and does not 
complement her work by unpicking the fantastic and highly- 
coloured figures that needle, her tongue, has elaborated. 
She is like a magic-lantern projecting pictures upon smoke, 
sheets, or blank walls, making those surfaces alive with 
forms and faces. You really would suppose that the man 
in bed was actually swallowing the rats that ran into his 
mouth, and that Blue Beard in very truth rolled his eyes 
and cut off his wife’s head, and that the cabbage was con- 
verted into Snip the Tailor. But, my dear nephew, they 
are phantasms. Go up to them, touch, observe, there is 


320 


ARMINELL. 


only smoke or whited wall. I have the highest respect for 
my sister’s genius. I bow before her imagination, and 
adore it ; but remember what Paley said of the imagination 
— that it is the fertile mother of error. My good sister’s 
delusive faculty seems to have become mamma to an ex- 
travagant blunder, which you are lovingly nursing.” 

“Then you place no reliance on my mother’s account? ” 

“ Wait a moment.” Mr. Welsh went to the bookcase. 
“ Here is a peerage. Turn up ; Lamerton, Baron,’ and see 
where his lordship was at that time that you were begun 
to be thought about. He was not in England — had not 
been there for two or three years. I knew that as well as 
the author of the peerage, perhaps better ; for I was at 
Orleigh at that time, a fact my sister Marianne forgot when 
she exhibited to me her magic-lantern slides. I was not 
then what I am now. I was then thankful for a bit of 
literary work, and did not turn up my nose at reviewing 
children’s books. I was as glad then to get a chance of 
putting pen to paper as I now am of getting a holiday from 
pen and paper.” 

“And,” said Jingles, somewhat staggered by the evidence 
of the peerage, “ you mean to tell me that my mother said 
— what — what — what was false ? ” 

“ Young shaver,” said Mr. Welsh, “ I read ‘ Herodotus ’ 
in Bohn’s translation. I don’t even know the letters of the 
Greek alphabet. I read for professional purposes. I ob- 
serve that when the father of history comes to a delicate 
and disputed question, he passes it over with the remark ‘I 
prefer not to express my own opinion thereon.’ When you 
ask’ me whether what your mother said was true or a lie, I 
answer with Herodotus, ‘ I prefer not to express my own 
opinion thereon.’ ” 

Giles Inglett looked down on the carpet. His lips 
quivered. 

“ Young shaver,” pursued Mr. Welsh, cheerily, rubbing 


ARMINELL. 


3 21 


his hands together, and taking up his newspaper, as a hint 
to his nephew to be gone, “ you had best return to your inn, 
and begin to pull out the threads of that elaborate and 
gorgeous piece of Gobelin your mother has furnished you 
with. Believe me, under the coloured worsted and floss 
silk, you will come on very vulgar canvas. It is a sad pity 
that you should have learned that you are not the son of 
Stephen Saltren. You might well have been left to share 
the common belief. Perhaps it was inevitable that you 
should discover the flaw in your nativity. Some women 
cannot hold their tongues. I am not sure that the Babylon- 
ians acted unwisely when on the occasion of their revolt 
against Darius, they strangled every woman in the city ex- 
cept their cooks, for, they argued, men can get along with- 
out the sex in every other capacity.” 

The young man was profoundly disturbed. He looked 
up, and said in a voice that expressed his emotion — 

“ Uncle, do not jest with me in this matter. To me it is 
one of deadly earnest. I entreat you speak the truth, for — 
good heavens ! If I am not what I supposed myself to be, 
I have made a terrible mistake.” 

“ You are no more a son of Lord Lamerton than I am. 
Marianne — I mean your mother — thinks I am ignorant of 
the real facts, but I never was, though I said nothing at the 
time or after.” 

“ Then you know who my father was.” 

“ Yes, I do — but I am not disposed to tell you.” 

“ I insist on knowing.” 

“ You ought never to have been told that you were not 
what you and the world supposed. Now don’t attempt to 
lift the embroidered veil your good mother has over the 
mystery. The veil is handsomer than what it conceals.” 

“ But — I have acted on the supposition that I was the son 
of Lord Lamerton.” 

“ I know you have, and more fool you. You have left 

x 


3 22 


ARMINELL. 


your situation as tutor in his house and a respectable in- 
come.” 

“ I have done more. I have persuaded Miss Inglett to 
run away with me.” 

“ You have — what ? ” 

Mr. Welsh dropped his hands and the paper ; he stood 
for a moment in blank amazement. Then the blood rushed 
into his brow, and his hands clenched. 

“You have — you dare not repeat those words.” 

“ It is true. I supposed she was my sister.” 

“ You dirty little blackguard ! ” cried Welsh, losing all 
control over himself and his tongue ; he sprang towards his 
nephew, brandishing the newspaper. “ I will horsewhip you 
with the only weapon I have, the Daily News ! You cox- 
comb ! You infamous snob ! I’m ashamed to acknowledge 
you as my sister’s child.” 

“ I know that I have made a terrible mistake.” 

“ Mistake is not the word for it. A more detestable, out- 
rageous, caddish act, I could not conceive. Good gracious ! 
I would like to kick you round my table, kick you down the 
hall, kick you out at my door, down the steps, send you fly- 
ing along the avenue from tree to tree, and a kick at each. 
Do you not see, you scoundrel, what you have done ? — cast 
an indelible slur upon the girl’s character. Mistake — mis- 
take, indeed ! Of all snobbery ! Mistake ! Get out of my 
house this instant. You pollute the atmosphere, you. You 
a son of my lord ! You, who have not a drop of honourable 
blood in your veins, not a spark of proper feeling in your 
heart, not the smallest grain of gentlemanly, let alone noble 
sentiment in your whole nature — you contemptible bastard 
of Sam Ceely.” 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 


LESS THAN NOBODY. 

Giles Inglett Saltren was so completely thrown off his 
balance by Welsh’s repudiations of the story of his parent- 
age, that he did not resent, he hardly heard the burst of in- 
dignation that escaped his uncle ; or, if he heard it, his 
mind was too preoccupied to follow his words, and measure 
their force, and take umbrage at their grossness. He was 
overpowered with dismay. What had he done ? He could 
not even realise the extent of the evil he had wrought, nor 
measure the depth of his own baseness. 

But Mr. Welsh was not a man to leave him without hav- 
ing spread out the mass of his misdeeds before him, and 
held his head down over it. ^d indicated its most salient 
features. 

“ You abominable little snob ! ” he exclaimed. “ Have 
you forgotten what has been done for you ? If his lordship 
had not taken you from the hard form on which you 
polished the seat of your corduroys, and set you in an easy 
chair, you’d have nice callosities now. Probably you would 
not have been alive at all had he not sent you to the South 
of France.” Mr. Welsh became sarcastic. “ No doubt you 
owe his lordship a grudge because he didn’t let you go at 
once to kingdom come instead of detaining you here in this 
Vale of Tears. Mind you, Giles — there is no escape from 
this fact, that you owe your life to him. To him also you 


3 2 4 


ARMINELL. 


owe your education. To him you owe it that, supposing 
you had lived, your are not now a horny-handed ploughboy, 
that you know how to use a pocket-handkerchief, and don’t 
put your knife in your mouth.” 

Mr. Welsh thrust his hands into his pockets, and stood 
with legs apart looking scornfully at his nephew. 

“ Pray, Mr. Giles Inglett, how would you like to go back 
to potato pasty and cold boiled junk of bacon? To an 
early dinner, and swipes instead of claret ? To getting your 
clothes at a slop-shop, instead of being fitted by a tailor ? 
To being without books and magazines and reviews ? Are 
you aware that you have earned not one of the luxuries or 
even comforts of civilized life? That they have come to 
you undeserved as does free Grace ? Upon my word, you 
make my blood splutter ! Shall I tell you what would have 
been the end of you had not Lord Lamerton come to the 
rescue ? After you were ill you would have been cared for, 
or not cared for, after the fashion of common folk’s children, 
and your mother’s haphazard way of doing everything* 
allowed to get your feet wet, and stand in draughts, neglected 
one day, coddled the next, till your weak lungs gave way, and 
rapid consumption set in. Shall I tell you what would have 
been the course of Act II ? Then you would have been 
mewed up in that dismal back bedroom at Chillacot, with 
the ultramarine wash on the walls, and the snipped, emerald- 
green, silver-paper fly trap suspended in the middle of the 
room, and the blistered mirror and the window looking out 
at a dripping rock, ugh ! There you would have lain and 
coughed ; and when an attempt was made to light the fire, 
the smoke would have refused to try the road up the chim- 
ney, and preferred that to your lungs; and when the window 
was opened to let the smoke out it would have let in the 
smell of the pigstye. When you wanted a book to enliven 
you, you would have been given Baxter’s ‘ Saints’ Rest ’ or 
a Methodist Missionary Magazine, and death itself would 


ARM I NELL. 


325 


have been welcome as an escape from such literature. You 
would have needed wine, and not had it ; cod-liver oil, and 
not had it; grapes, and not had them; calves’ foot jelly, 
and had to do without. You would have been given thin 
gruel, and fried india-rubber, that playfully considered itself 
rump steak, much as you consider yourself a nobleman, and 
leaden dough, greasy bacon, and lukewarm bad tea. Your 
bed would have been lumpy and made occasionally, and 
your sheets changed now and then, and your pillow-case 
assuming the adhesiveness to your cheek of postage stamps ; 
and there would have been a draught like a mill-race pouring 
in through that gap — I know it — under the door. 'When 
you wanted to sleep by day, your mother would be scouring 
pans in the back kitchen underneath, and when so inclined 
at night, your father, on the other side of the partition, 
would be snoring like John Willett. As you grew weaker, 
and more unable to endure worry, in would have come the 
captain, to exhort and expound, and stir and whip up your 
weary soul into a caper of screaming terror. You would 
have longed for death as an escape from the ''smells and the 
smoke, and the crude blue, and the draught, and the knots 
in your mattress, and the Missionary Magazines, and the 
pigs in the yard, and the benzoline lamp.” 

Mr. Welsh stooped and picked up his newspaper, which 
lay crumpled on the floor. He smoothed it, and folded it 
on the table. Then he looked hard at his nephew. Giles 
remained motionless, with eyes on the carpet ; his brow 
was troubled and his lips trembling. He was very pale. 

“That is how you would have ended as a boy of 
seventeen,” pursued Mr. Welsh, remorselessly, mercilessly. 
“ Your life you owe to Lord Lamerton, your mind has been 
expanded and enriched by him. Had he not sent you to 
college what would have been the range of your ideas? 
What would you have known of Shakespeare, Thackeray ? 
Pope, Goethe, and Dante? What appreciation of art? 


3 2 6 


ARMINELL. 


You would have been as incapable of judging between a 
good painting and a daub, of discriminating between Tann- 
haiiser and Sankey and Moody, as any chawbacon. What 
I have learned, I have learned with labour, I had no masters, 
no hand to help me over the stile. I wish I had had your 
advantages, but no Lord Lamerton took me up. I had not 
that luck. I have had to fight my own way. I daresay you 
think it inconsistent in me to take the part of his lordship 
against my own nephew, but that is because your conscience 
is disordered. I fight him tooth and nail, because he is an 
aristocrat and I a democrat. It is my business to attack 
the Tories and the landed interest and the House of Lords. 
I am a politician, and in politics all is fair ; but we are now 
in another region altogether, in that of common honesty, 
and domestic relations ; I look on my lord, not as a noble- 
man, but as a father, and a kind-hearted man who has done 
much for you ; and I am able to take the gauge of your 
conduct accordingly. You have behaved infamously towards 
your benefactor, you have hurt him where he is most 
sensitive — hitting, you contemptible little coward, below 
the belt. You have stained the pure name of his only 
daughter, tarnished the honour of an irreproachable house. 
Who will believe that the girl ran away with you, because 
she supposed that you were her brother? Everyone knows 
that you are nothing of the kind. Should it leak out that 
you are not Captain Saltren’s son, how will it mend matters 
if it be shown that you are the bastard brat of old blear- 
eyed, one-handed, limping Samuel Ceely?” 

Giles winced, he raised both his hands, half beseechingly, 
half as if to protect himself from the .words which struck 
him as blows. It was a convulsive, not a purposed move- 
ment Also he looked up for a moment, and attempted to 
speak, but said nothing, the words died away in his throat. 
Then his head fell again. 

“You say you have saved some money,” Welsh went 


j».RMINELL, 


327 


on ; “ whose money ? That which Lord Lamerton gave 
you. How many hundreds of pounds do you suppose 
you have cost him ? In sending you to Bordighera, in 
doctors’ bills, in school and college accounts? You 
swaggered at Oxford as a gentleman, and Lord Lamerton 
paid for it. He furnished your rooms in college, paid your 
battels. You invited your friends to breakfasts and wines, 
and he paid for them. Who but he put the clothes on 
your back, hung the pictures on your walls, fitted neat 
boots on your feet, and supplied you with that silk pocket- 
handkerchief you are now using to wipe the shame drops off 
your brow with ? And — in return for all this, you stab him 
to the heart and blast the fair name of his child ! Good 
heavens ! I feel as uncomfortable in your presence as 
would Mr. Gladstone in a lodge of Primrose Dames on St. 
Benjamin’s day. But there ! — enough about your despic- 
able self. It is high time something were done about Miss 
Inglett. I’ll go with you. What a nuisance it is that 
Tryphoena is just now without a cook. I’ll bring the 
girl here, nevertheless, if she has nowhere else to go to ; or 
I will run down with her myself to Orleigh, or I’ll take her 
to any relation she may have in town. You come with me, 
you mean little cad, as far as your inn, or lodgings, or where 
the deuce you are, and leave me there. Don’t show your 
pasty face again. We have seen already too much of 
you.” 

He rang the bell, and the maid-of-all-work appeared. 

“Susan, turn, or take off your apron, and run and fetch 
me a hansom.” 

“ Please, sir, an’ if I don’t come on an ’ansom ? ” 

“ Then a cab. Come, sharp ! ” 

He said no more. He was agitated, because very angry. 
He went out for his hat and gloves, and an umbrella, 
opened the latter, and refolded it ; then he discovered that 
he was in a shabby morning coat, so he changed it upstairs, 


328 ARMINELL. 

and put on his boots in the hall, and then returned for his 
newspaper. 

By this time Susan had arrived, seated in a four-wheeler. 
She had not encountered a hansom. 

“ Go on,” said Welsh to his nephew, “ I’ll follow.” He 
took his newspaper from the table, and brought it with him 
to the cab. 

The direction was given to the driver, and the vehicle 
started. Welsh would not speak another word to Giles. 
He threw himself back with a grunt in the cab, and began 
to read his paper. 

Jingles looked dreamily forth from the window on his 
side. The cab was being driven along Gold Hawk Road ; 
there was not much traffic in it that morning ; a coal-cart, a 
Shepherd’s Bush omnibus were passed. The cabman drew 
up, and swore at an old lady who in crossing the road had 
dropped a parcel of tracts, which scattered in all directions, 
and who returned almost under the feet of the horse to re- 
cover some of the papers. Mr. James Welsh uttered an 
exclamation. Saltren did not notice it, he was in a stunned 
condition unable to take observation of anything, unable to 
do more than reiterate in his mind, “ I have made a mis- 
take — a fatal mistake ! ” He was unable even to consider 
in what way it could be rectified, if capable of rectification. 
He was not in a condition to weigh his uncle’s proposals 
what to do with Arminell. He did not even feel his uncle’s 
rude remarks, they passed over him without producing an 
impression, so deadened were his faculties by the consterna- 
tion in which he was. His brain was like a sewing-machine 
in full operation, with a needle in it, stab — stab — stabbing, 
and always carrying the same thread, “ I’ve made a mistake 
— a fatal mistake ! ” and making therewith a lock stitch in- 
capable of unravelment, that went round and round both 
heart and brain, and bound them together. 

“ Good God ! ” exclaimed Welsh, and let drop his papei 


ARMINELL. 


3 2 9 


on his lap. Then he turned, “ Giles ! ” he shouted in his 
nephew’s ear. “ Confound the fellow, are you asleep ? I 
did think I had heard the worst, but there is worse behind ! 
Lord — this is awful ! Giles — you fool — look at the paper.” 

The young man took the sheet mechanically. The fly 
jolted, and he could not read. He laid the paper down. 
“ My eyes are dazzled,” he said, “ I cannot make out the 
print. Besides, I am indifferent to news.” 

“ You must not be indifferent. The news concerns you 
particularly.” 

“ I don’t care about politics,” said Giles irritably, “ I am 
worried, crushed. 1 have made a mistake — an awful, a 
fatal mistake.” 

“ This is not about politics at all,” shouted his uncle. 
“ Lord ! how shall 1 break the tidings to Miss Inglett ? I 
wish I had brought my wife. Women do these things 
better than men. But, as we have no cook, Tryphcena is 
engaged this morning in the kitchen, up to her ears, above 
her ears, judging from the condition of the top of her head, 
in work — I must do it. I hope that Miss Inglett has not 
seen a newspaper this morning.” 

“Well — then — what is it?” asked young Saltren im- 
patiently. 

“What is it? Just this,” answered Welsh grimly and 
with vehemence, “ Lord Lamerton is dead.” 

“ Dead ! ” Giles Saltren was frozen with horror. 

“Yes — dead. Found dead near Chillacot, fallen down 
the cliff whilst on his way to see your father. Of course 
there are suspicions of foul play. Nothing as yet certain.” 

“ Found dead ! ” The young man gasped for breath. 
The muscles of his chest contracted and a pain as though a 
bayonet had stabbed him shot through his heart. He was 
suffocating, he gasped for breath. The windows of the cab 
began to spin round him, the back of the cab with the 
cushions swung round to the front, and the front lights 


330 


ARMINELL. 


went behind, and the side windows rose and hung over his 
head, then revolved and were beneath his feet. Mr. Welsh 
let down the glass near the young man, as he saw the con- 
dition into which he was falling, and tnat he was incapable 
of doing this for himself. 

“ Yes,” said his uncle, “ dead — that is what has come on 
us now, and there is mischief behind. That mad, fanatical 
fool, the captain — I should not wonder if he were involved 
in it, with his visions, and trumpets, and vials, and book of 
the Gilded Clique. He ought to have been locked up long 
ago. He took everything in solemn earnest ; he believed 
in Marianne’s rhodomontade ; he swallowed her lies whole. 
As far as I can guess this is what happened. Lord Lamer- 
ton discovered that Miss Inglett was gone, gone with you, 
and without a word to any one went to Chillacot over the 
down to make enquiries of the captain about the fugitives. 
How he came to fa^ over the cliff on his way, God knows ! 
But of this I am very certain, that it was you, Giles, who 
sent him on the road that led to death. He would not 
have gone to Chillacot had he not had need to go there to 
enquire after you. So now, Giles, what do you think of 
yourself — eh ? ” 

Young Saltren covered his face with his hands, and sank 
fainting into the bottom of the cab. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 


ANOTHER BREAK-DOWN. 

Arminell had awoke to the fact that she had made a mistake 
before that conviction had been brought home to the mind 
of Jingles ; but she entertained not the shadow of a sus- 
picion how radical that mistake was. 

She became conscious that she had put herself in a false 
position almost as soon as she had taken the false step. 
At the first large station the guard had been obtrusively 
obliging, and a little familiar. He had allowed her to see 
that he regarded her and Giles as a young couple starting 
on their honeymoon tour ; that he took a friendly interest in 
them, and he assured them he would allow no one to invade 
their compartment. He looked in on them half-way, to 
know how they were getting on ; whether she would desire 
refreshments to be brought her to the carriage; whether 
she would like to have the blinds drawn down. 

Arrived in town, they went to a quiet private hotel in 
Bloomsbury, mostly frequented by literary persons consult- 
ing the library of the British Museum. Jingles had not 
been there before. He knew of the hotel only by repute. 

The landlady, an eminently respectable person, hesitated 
at first about receiving the young people. She did not 
understand the relation in which they stood to each other, 
and she looked inquisitively at Arrninell’s left hand. There 
was not a trace of family likeness that she could discover 
in their faces, when young Saltren explained that they were 


33 2 


ARMINELL. 


brother and sister. A further explanation was necessary 
when he gave his name as Saltren, and hers as Inglett. 
Then he regretted that he had not gone to a large hotel, 
where no questions would have been asked. He had 
considered his pocket, and Arminell’s wishes. He could 
not afford a heavy expense, and she shrank from publicity. 

Next morning Arminell woke with a sense of depression 
she could not shake off. As she dressed, the tears of 
mortification rose into her eyes. She was vexed with 
herself, and vexed with Jingles. She knew that what she 
had done must wound her father, and compromise herself, 
at all events, for a while. She had taken the step in a fit 
of pique at her father’s desire to get rid of her, and of 
romantic enthusiasm, to force him to acknowledge Jingles. 
She had felt convinced that in no other way could he be 
induced to do this. She entertained no particular admira- 
tion for young Saltren, no great affection for him, only a 
girlish eagerness to see a misunderstood and ill-used man 
put in his proper place and acknowledged by the world. 
When she met Jingles at breakfast in the coffee-room, there 
was mutual restraint between them of which both were 
conscious ; and in Arminell’s heart a little welling up of 
wrath against him. She knew that the feeling was ungener- 
ous. He was less to blame than herself — that is, she had 
proposed the elopement ; but then he was older than 
herself, and as a man ought to have pointed out the impro- 
priety of the proposal. Now it was too late. The die was 
cast which must mould the rest of her life, and of what 
nature that die was she could not yet tell. 

Sunday passed quietly. Arminell remained for the most 
part in her own room, and young Saltren also kept secluded, 
going through, recopying, and improving his article on Port 
Hamilton, which he regarded as his masterpiece. 

On Monday,, at breakfast, Saltren told her that he would 
go at once, early in the day, to consult his uncle, and that 


ARMINELL. 


333 


then they would go together in search of suitable lodgings. 
The looking out for lodgings could be done in the after 
noon, as their nature would be determined by the amount 
of income on which Saltren could reckon. 

“ I suppose/’ he said, “ that my uncle can help me into 
getting the composition of a leader every alternate day as a 
beginning, and if I get five guineas for a leader, that will 
make fifteen in the week. Then, I suppose, I can do re- 
viewing, and write for magazines, and make about thirty 
pounds a week, that will be, say fifteen hundred a year, as a 
beginning. I have reckoned the year as one of fifty instead 
of filty-two weeks, because I shall have to allow myself a 
short holiday. On fifteen hundred a year we ought to have 
a nice villa residence, with garden and conservatories. 
What do you say to a Queen Anne house at Turnham 
Green? I, myself, rather incline to Chislehurst.” 

When he was gone, Arminell, left to herself, had returned 
to her bedroom, to find it not ready for her. So she went 
downstairs again, and sat by the window in the coffee-room, 
looking into the street through the wire-gauze blind, not 
thinking of and interested in what passed in the street, but 
turning in mind to Orleigh, to her pretty chamber there ; to 
the breakfast room, with the windows to the east, and the 
sun flooding it ; to the table with its silver, and flowers, and 
porcelain. How small everything in this inn was, and how 
lacking in freshness and grace ! 

Her father’s cheery face had been a feature at the meal, 
as was also her step-mother, fresh, gentle, pale, and dove- 
like in movement and tone. She remembered these things 
now that she had cast them from her, and found that they 
had been pleasant, and were not to be recalled without a 
beating of the pulse, and a rising in the throat. 

Two gentlemen were at breakfast at a table near her, 
and were eating eggs — London eggs — and the savour of 
eggs, especially London eggs, in a low room is not agreeable. 


334 


ARMINELL. 


They were talking about the tribes of Northern Asia, 
Samojeds, Ostiacks, Tungus, Vogulese, about bvachyce- 
phalic and dolichocephalic heads, and agglutinative tongues, 
and linguistic roots ; and then one of the gentlemen dropped 
some of his egg on his beard, and continued to eat and talk 
of agglutinative tongues, and ethnological peculiarities, and 
Turanian characteristics, without observing it ; and the drop 
of yolk coagulated on his beard, and moved with his jaw, 
and. became agitated and excited over the linguistic affinities 
of the Tchuchtchees with the Koriacks on one side and the 
Yuckaheres on the other. 

Arminell was teased both by the drop of yolk from which 
she could not withdraw her eye, and by the vehemence of 
the disputants, and by the — to her — uninteresting nature of 
the topic that was discussed. She forced herself to look 
into the street, and observe the passers-by ; but in another 
minute fell to ruminating on the condition of the gentleman’s 
beard, to wondering whether he had yet wiped the egg-drop 
away, or why his friend did not point it out to him ; and 
then her eye mechanically travelled back to the beard, and 
the gamboge spot on it. Presently a stout, shabbily-dressed 
lady entered with her two plain daughters, all three with that 
grey complexion that makes one think the heads must be 
cut out of Jerusalem artichoke. The mother had puffy 
cheeks, and small beady eyes. She talked loudly to her 
daughters, loudly enough to be heard by all in the room, 
about her distinguished acquaintances, her butler, and foot- 
men, and lady’s-maid, and coachman, and carriages, and 
gradually subdued the gentlemen who had been arguing over 
the ethnology of Northern Asia, and set them wondering 
how it was that this stout party and her daughters had come 
to so small an inn, and were not occupying a suite in the 
Hotel Metropole. 

Arminell had endured the talk of the learned men, but 
the vulgar clack of this underbred woman was insupport- 


ARMINELL. 335 

able. She rose and ascended the stairs to her bedroom, 
which was now, fortunately, ready tor her. 

This room did not command the street. It looked out at 
the mews, and beyond the mews at a row of brick houses, 
seen above the wall enclosing the back premises. In the 
mews yard were some carriages being washed, and grooms 
with their braces discharged from their right shoulders, 
brushing and combing their horses. Over the stables were 
the windows of the dwellings of the cabdrivers and their 
wives, and of the ostlers ; and there were sickly attempts at 
flower gardening in some of them. Out of others hung 
articles of clothing to be aired or dried. A multitude of 
dingy sparrows hopped about in the yard, and also a con- 
siderable and apparently inexhaustible number of equally 
dingy children. 

Beyond the wall of the backyard of a house in the'iow 
was a gaunt Lombardy poplar, trunk and branches sable as 
the stalks of maidenhair fern. What a pretty view had 
been that which Arminell had commanded from her bed- 
room window at Orleigh ! The sweeps of green turf in the 
park, the stately trees, the cedars, and the .copper beech, 
and the silver birch 1 How the birds had sung in the 
morning about her window ! How sweet had been the in- 
cense of the wisteria trusses of lilac flowers entering at the 
open casement ! 

What would her father say at her departure ? Into what 
a predicament had she put him ? She had forced him into 
one from which he could not escape without publishing his 
own dishonour, without allowing his wife, and the parish, 
and the county, and society generally to know that once on 
a time he had behaved in a manner unworthy of a gentle- 
man to a poor servant girl. He to whom every one in the 
place, in the county, looked up as a spotless and worthy 
John Bull, was to be proclaimed an impostor, and made the 
talk of idle and malicious tongues. 


33 & 


ARMINELL. 


“ If a man has done wrong,” she said to justify her- 
self, “ he must bear the consequences. It is cowardly 
to try and hide the act, evade what it entails, and base to 
appear before the world under false pretences. Let him 
acknowledge the wrong he has done, and men will then 
respect him because he is open, and does not shrink from 
those consequences a wrong act brings on the wrong-doer.” 

But this did not satisfy her. It might be true, it was 
true, that this was the only right and honourable course for 
one to take who had erred, but — was she, his daughter, the 
proper person to force her father into the course and out of 
the road he had elected to pursue ? Was it for her hand to 
rip up old wounds, and drag into the light the dark secrets 
he strove to bury out of sight ? Was it for her to reveal a stain 
which disfigured the whole house? Was it for her to shock 
her step-mother, and disturb her trust ? To mar the domes- 
tic unity and mutual esteem which had been so perfect ? 

Lady Lamerton had her weaknesses, but she had also 
her strength, and her strength was the rectitude of her heart, 
which made her do her duty with all her power. In pursu- 
ance of this sense of duty, Lady Lamerton had been unfail- 
ingly kind to Arminell. The girl, looking back, saw this 
now, and was stung with self-reproach, because in return for 
this treatment she cast the apple of discord between her 
father and mother, and broke what to her ladyship was the 
most precious jewel she possessed — her reverence for my 
lord. 

And how — when it pleased Arminell to return home after 
all the disturbance she had caused, the pain and humilia- 
tion she had occasioned — how would she be received again 
by those she had wronged and hurt ? She had no doubt 
upon this point. She knew that she would be received 
with open arms, and without a word of reproach from one 
or the other. 

Then Arminell began to sob, and she saw no more the 


ARMINELL. 


337 


ostler curricombing his horse, nor the woman shaking a 
table-cloth out of a window, nor the sparrows quarrelling 
for the crumbs, nor the back of a maid seated outside a 
house on a window-ledge cleaning the glass, or she saw 
these things through a watery film. 

She was roused by a tap at her door. She hastily dried 
her eyes, and stood up, with her back to the light, that her 
discomposure might be unobserved, and called to the per- 
son without to enter. 

A waiter opened the door and announced that a gentleman 
had called, and was below in a private sitting-room. He ex- 
tended a tray, and Miss Inglett took from it a card, and 
read, “ Mr. James Welsh.” 

“ I will come down directly,” she said. 

The waiter bowed and closed the door. 

Arminell tarried for a moment only, to recover herself, 
and then descended. She expected to see Jingles with his 
uncle, but he was not in the room. 

“At your service, Miss Inglett. I am the uncle of Hansel 
who has run away with Grethel. You find that you have- 
not come to the cottage of almond rock, with windows of 
barley sugar. You are not, I suppose, interested in politics?” 

“ No, or only slightly. Social subjects — ” 

“ Neither in Monday’s paper. Never in my life saw one 
with less of interest in it, no news, nothing but a Temper- 
ance Demonstration at Exeter Hall, presided over by the 
Reverend Jowles. It is not worth your while looking into 
a paper to-day.” 

“ Is Mr. Saltren returned ? ” asked Arminell. 

“Damped off,” replied Welsh. “That is a process 
whereby an amateur loses a good many cuttings and seed- 
lings. Hansel came to me with any amount of young hopes 
and ambitions and cockscombs — especially, and I have 
damped them all off. Expected to make a fortune in 
literature, wanted to tread the walks of political journalism 

Y 


33 » 


ARMINELL. 


— as well try to tread the tight rope without previous educa- 
tion. Miss Inglett, you will see no more of him. So what 
is Grethel to do without her Hansel ?” 

He paused for a minute but received no answer, not, 
perhaps, that he expected one, but he allowed time for what 
lie had said to soak into her mind before he went on. 

“ There is a story,” continued Welsh, who purposely spun 
out what he had to say, knowing that it was an unpleasant 
dose, and therefore to be mixed with jam. “ There is a 
story by a classic author, whom I have read only in English, 
concerning a young man named Lucius who once saw a 
woman smear herself with an unguent, whereupon she flew 
out at the window, transformed into a bird. Lucius got 
hold of the unguent and applied it to himself and found 
himself to have become — not a bird by any means — simply 
an ass. Our good friend has been going through the same 
experience. You, Miss Inglett, have spread your wings, 
and Giles comes trotting after with a bray. You need not 
be afraid — he will not show himself again. He has looked 
on himself in a mirror, and is hiding his ears.” 

“ Do you mean, Mr. Welsh, that your nephew has de- 
serted me ? ” 

“ The ass is just now so ashamed of himself, that he is in 
hiding. But no more about him. What about yourself ? 
I place myself unreservedly at your disposal. I will recon- 
duct you to Orleigh, by the next train, and telegraph for the 
carriage to meet us at the station.” 

“ I cannot go back — just now.” 

“ Have you a relation, a lady, in town who could receive 
you?” 

“ Lady Hermione Woodhead — my aunt.” 

“Then I will take you to her at once.” 

“ I cannot go to her.” 

“ Then Mrs. Welsh will be happy to accommodate you. 
She is without a cook, but that don’t matter. She can make 


ARMINELL. 


339 


good pastry. Come along with me to Shepherd’s Bush. 
There will be rissoles for dinner to-day as we had joint 
yesterday ; and we will buy a pair of soles on our 
way.” 

“ I cannot understand,” said Arminell. “ I came here 
with your nephew. I suppose you are aware that he is my 
half-brother.” 

“ Half-fiddlesticks,” exclaimed Mr. Welsh. “ My dear 
young lady, you have been carried off your feet by romantic 
fancies, which at a certain ingenious age inflate the head as 
carburetted hydrogen does a goldbeaterskin bag. Giles has 
been in the same condition, but I have pricked the bag and 
let out the nonsense. Now his head is in a condition of 
collapse. That which you were told about his parentage is 
all nonsense.” 

“ Do you mean — ” Arminell did not finish the sentence, 
she was interrupted by Welsh. 

“ Yes, I do,” he said. “ I know all the circumstances. 
I know more about them than my sister Marianne supposes. 
Marianne is an utter liar, has a physical infirmity, I sup- 
pose, which prevents her tongue from being straight. It 
describes as many curls as a corkscrew on the St. Gothard 
line. She has about as keen a sense of truth as a Russian 
diplomatist, and as much bounce as General Boulanger. 
Now, then- -as you see from which direction the wind blows, 
and where lie the reefs, perhaps you will allow a pilot to 
come unsignalled on board, and turn your head off the 
breakers.” 

“ I have made a mistake — a fatal mistake,” was all that 
Arminell could say, dropping her hands at her sides. 

“Those are precisely my nephew’s words — literally the 
same ; which is not to be wondered at, because you have 
both fallen together into the same error. Come, I must 
help you out of your difficulties. What will you do? Go 
to your aunt ? Return home ? Or come to Shepherd’s 


340 


ARMINELL. 


Bush to rissoles and a pair of soles, fried or boiled as yuu 
prefer ? ” 

“ But where is Mr. Saltren ? I ought to see him.” 

“ He will not show his face again. He is at the present 
moment like blancmange from which the isinglass has been 
omitted, in a condition of mental and moral imbecility.” 

A tap at the door, and without waiting for an answer 
Giles Inglett Saltren entered, erect, with firm step, and a 
resolute face. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 


A RALLY. 

Giles Inglett Saltren had left the cab at Cumberland 
Gate, when the momentary faintness had passed. He 
wished to be alone, in the fresh air, and with his own 
thoughts. His uncle had detained the cab till he saw that 
his nephew was better. He left him on a bench in the 
park and bade him remain there till his return from the 
interview with Arminell. 

The young man felt the relief of being alone. The 
vibration of the carriage, his uncle’s voice, his own self- 
reproach, had, combined with the shock of the news of 
his lordship’s death, brought about the slight fit of uncon- 
sciousness. He was in that overwrought condition of 
nervous tension in . which another touch would be insup- 
portable ; and Welsh’s finger was not light, he twanged the 
fibres in his nephew’s heart, not as if he were playing a harp 
with finger-balls, but as if he were performing on a zither 
with his nails. The air was cool ; the bench on which 
Jingles was seated had not another occupant. The great 
open space in Hyde Park devoted to political meetings was 
sparsely peopled at that time in the morning ; he was not 
likely to be disturbed, and the rumble of vehicles along 
Uxbridge Road and Oxford Street produced a soothing 
effect rather than the contrary. 


ARMINELL. 


$42 

A Frenchman was walking along the path before his 
bench with a walking-stick ; he had found a bit of slate in 
the way, and with his cane he flipped it along a few feet, 
then stopped, and flipped it on to the grass ; went upon the 
turf and flipped it back into the path. Then he sent it 
forward, past Jingles on his bench, and so on as far as 
Cumberland Gate, where the young man lost sight of 
Monsieur, and was unable to see whether he continued to 
drive the scrap of slate before him up Oxford Street in the 
direction of his haunts in Leicester Square, or whether he 
left it under the arch. 

Till the Frenchman had disappeared, Giles Saltren did 
not begin to consider his own trouble. He could not do 
so till the bit of slate was gone beyond his range, with 
Monsieur after it. Watching the man was a sensible relief 
to him. When one has run, a pause allows the recovery of 
breath, and abates the pulsations, so did this diversion of 
attention serve to relieve Jingles, to lull the agony of re- 
morse, and enable his mind to regain something of evenness 
and tone. 

When a man has been struck on the head by a hammer, 
he falls. Jingles had received three stunning blows, and 
recovery could not be immediate. His sanguine hopes of 
living by his pen had been upset, and that was a blow to 
his self-esteem. Then his belief in his noble parentage had 
been knocked over. And lastly he had heard of Lord 
Lamerton’s death — and whether that were accidental or 
not, he could hardly doubt that he had brought it about, 
for his lordship would not have left his guests to go to Chil- 
lacot, had he not been impelled to do so by learning of the 
elopement. 

There are moments in the lives of most of us when we 
come on new scenes that are epoch-making in our life’s- 
history. I shall never forget as such my first view of Mont 
Blanc, from the Col de Balme, and of a portion of the 


ARMINELL. 


343 


moon’s surface through the Cambridge Observatory teles* 
cop.*, or the first sight of death. Some of these first sights 
are invested with pleasure unutterable, others with infinite 
pain ; and of such latter are often those peeps within our- 
selves which we sometimes obtain. 

What atmospheric effects, what changing lights, all beauti- 
ful, invest the outer landscape with magic, even where the 
scenery is tame. How rarely is it unpleasing to the eye. 
And it is the same when we turn our eyes inwards, and 
contemplate the landscape of our own selves, what glories 
of light flood all, what richness of foliage clothes all, how 
picturesque are the inequalities ! How vast the surface to 
the horizon ! And yet, it sometimes happens, not often, 
and not even to all, that a shadow falls over the scene and 
blots out all its comeliness, and then ensues a flare, a light- 
ning flash, and we see all — no longer beautiful, but infinitely 
ghastly. 

Saint Theresa, in one of her autobiographical sketches, 
says that she was shown her own self, on one occasion ot 
introspection, not as she was wont to view it, but as it was 
in naked reality, and she could never after recall the vision 
without a shudder. 

Who sees himself as he is ? Who wishes to do so ? 
Who would not be offended were you to exhibit to his eyes 
a picture of himself as he is ? No one likes his own photo- 
graph, for the sun does not flatter. But no photographs 
have yet been taken of man’s interior self ; if they were, no 
one would consent to look on his own ; he would spend all 
his fortune in buying up the copies and destroying the 
plates. 

We are accustomed to view ourselves as those do who 
stand on the Brocken, magnified a thousand fold, with 
rainbow haloes about our heads. I have known a little 
fellow, who reached my elbow, strut with infinite conse- 
quence, and gesticulate with tragic dignity on the Brocken, 


344 


ARMINELL. 


before his own shadow projected on a cloud, nimbus-girded, 
and vast as the All-Father of Norse mythology. A breath 
of wind passed, and the phantom vanished. But we carry 
our Brocken shadow about with us everywhere, and posture 
to it, and look up to it, with an awe and admiration that 
slides into worship ; and very rarely does the cold east wind 
sweep it away. But there remains this consolation to the 
Brocken shadow worshipper, that when the phantom form 
disappears, nothing remains behind, apd it is a satisfaction, 
a poor one, but still a satisfaction, when the blast has 
dispelled our ideal self before which we have bowed, to 
discover behind it simple nonentity. There would be dis- 
enchantment indeed, and a graver walk, and a more subdued 
voice, and a less self-asserting tone, but there would not be 
that exquisite, that annihilating horror that ensues when the 
scattering of the vapour discloses a reality the reverse at 
every point of what we had imagined. 

In the Egyptian temples hung purple curtains embroidered 
with gold, and censers perpetually smoked before the veil, 
and golden lamps, ever burning, diffused a mellow light 
through the sacred enclosure. What was behind that pic- 
tured spangled veil, within the holy of holies ? Sometimes 
a hippopotamus wallowing on straw — or a chattering crane — 
sometimes, Nothing. We are engaged all our lives in the 
erection of magnificent temples about ourselves, and in 
embroidering gold-besprent curtains, and in the burning of 
frankincense, and in the kindling and feeding of lamps, in 
these tabernacles ; and what is behind the veil ? Do we 
know? Do we ever look? We paint and plate with gold 
ideal representations of the god within on the propyheum 
of our temple, but what resemblance does this figure bear 
to the reality ? Do we know? Do we care to know ? Will 
we not rather put out our eyes than compare them ? If, by 
chance, a sudden gleam of sun, a puff of pure air, stir the 
curtain and reveal the mystery, with what haste we fly to 


ARMINELL. 


345 


duplicate the veils, to blind the windows, to nail the curtains 
to the gilded sideposts, and weight them with lead. How 
we redouble our prostrations, * and make more dense the 
cloud of incense ; how we elaborate our ceremonial, and 
when the hippopotamus within yawns, or the ibis chatters, 
we clash our cymbals, boom our drums, peal our trumpets 
to drown the utterance of the god. 

There was in Alexandria no god like unto Serapis, whose 
temple was the wonder of the world. But one day an 
impious hand struck off the head, and out of the gilded 
idol rushed a legion of rats. There is no god, no idol, like 
the ideal self within the veil ; but it does not chance to 
every one as it chanced to Giles Inglett Saltren, to have its 
head knocked off and see the vermin scamper out of it. 
When that does happen, that is a moment never to be 
forgotten. It is a moment of infinite importance in the 
life-history, it is a moment determinative of the future. 
The worshippers of Serapis, after that terrible spectacle, 
which was also extremely laughable, stood in consternation ; 
and at that moment stood also at the fork of two roads. 
Either they shuffled off to the left, with their hands in their 
pockets, damning all religion, and vowing they would 
believe in nothing thenceforth, or they moved with firm 
steps along the right-hand road that led to a truer faith. 

The same takes place with us when the Serapis of our 
ideal self is broken and reveals the nest of rats within. 
Either our moral nature becomes disintegrated, and breaks 
down utterly and irremediably into unsightly debris, or we 
turn from the worship of ourselves to seek elsewhere our 
ideal, and looking to it, attain to a nobler, more generous, 
an altruistic life. 

Mr. James Welsh had not spared Jingles; he had told 
him plainly, even coarsely, what he thought of him, but no 
words of his could express the intensity of the sense of 
infamy that Giles Inglett felt. For a moment he had been 


346 


ARM I NELL. 


stunned, numbed as hind and font become numbed foi 
awtiile. and then with a tingling and needle-pricking, the 
moral juices began once more to flow, and the agony of 
inner pain he felt was the pledge of moral recovery. 

As soon as Giles Inglett Saltren began to consider what 
were the consequences drawn upon him and Arminell by 
his folly, an almost overpowering desire came over him to 
fly from England. He had sufficient money to pay his 
passage across the Atlantic, and to maintain him in a new 
world till he could obtain a suitable situation. In a new 
world he might begin life anew, leaving behind his old 
follies and faults, and make a smooth table of the past. In 
the old world he could do nothing to remedy what he had 
wrought ; but he put the temptation from him. He saw 
that to yield to it would be an act of cowardice, and would 
result in moral ruin. Instinctively, without self-analysis, he 
reached the conclusion that a single course lay open before 
him if he were to save his moral self from wreck. The same 
moment that he became conscious of this, he stood up, and 
hailed a passing empty hansom. 

That moment saw the beginning of a new life in him ; 
new ends, new visions, rose before his eyes. 

Thus it was that Giles Inglett Saltren entered the sitting- 
room where his uncle was engaged with Arminell, and thus 
it was that he entered it a very different man from what Mr. 
Welsh had described him. 

“How came you here?” asked the journalist. “Did 
not I tell you to remain in Hyde Park till you were 
wanted?” 

“ I have come,” answered Giles firmly, “ to speak to Miss 
Inglett. I have a just duty to perform to her, to clear her 
mind of the clouds I have brought over it. Miss Inglett, I 
was utterly wrong in supposing that his lordship was — was 
— what I let you believe him to be, my father. I did him 
a grievous wrong, I imagined it possible that the best and 


ARMINELL. 347 

itvvw* Mameless of men had been guilty of the basest con- 
dw v . And now that your father is dead — ” 

‘ L'cad ! ” echoed Arminell. 

SaUtco looked at bis uncle. He had supposed* that 
Welsh had broken the news to the girl. 

“ Yes/’ usid he, and his voice, which before was firm, gave 
way for a moment. n Your father is dead.” 

“ Dead ! ’* again repeated Arminell, and put her hands to 
her brow. She was being stunned by repeated blows, as 
Saltren had b-sen stunned. “ Dead ! Impossible.” 

“ Miss Inglett, it is as well that you should know all, and 
know it at once, for action must be taken immediately. 
Your father has met with an accident — he has been found 
dead after a fall. I shall return immediately by the express 
to Orleigh. I go to my mother at Chillacot. You must 
allow my uncle at once to escort you to Lady Hermione ; 
place yourself under hey protection, and confide to her all 
the particulars of your leaving home. I will see Lady 
Lamerton, and she shall telogiaph to you at Lady Her- 
mione’s to return to the Park. I will wire at once, in your 
name, to your mother, to send your lady’s-maid to you at 
your aunt’s in Portland Place. Your maid will find you 
there, and attend you home to Orleigh. It is possible that 
by this means your running away from home with me may 
remain unknown. You left Orleigh oo Saturday, by to-night 
your maid will be with you in Portlavid Place, and I shall 
be seen this evening at Orleigh, where I shall make a point 
of showing myself. It is therefore not likely that suspicions 
of my ever having left may arise. Ther.e is no time to be 
lost. You will hear, all too soon, the particulars of your 
father’s death— about myself I will not speak. I should 
be ashamed to say a word in self-justification, and 
my self-reproach is beyond the power of words to ex- 
press.” 

Arminell turned herself about, as though rotating on a 


348 


ARMINELL. 


pivot, holding her temples with both hands, and elbows ex- 
tended. 

“ Yes,” said Mr. Welsh, “ this is well considered. Giles, 
it shall be as you say. I will take Miss Inglett at once to 
Portland Place, unless she prefers that I should go to her 
ladyship, and prepare her ; and then Miss Inglett can 
follow. That probably will be the least painful course.” 

Arminell still swung herself from side to side. She was 
pale as ashes, and her eyes full of trouble and terror. 

“ I will go home directly, uncle,” said Giles. “ I have 
acted not like a fool only, but wickedly, and I must face 
the consequences.” 

Arminell remained stationary, and released her temples. 

“ What was that you said ? ” she asked. 

“ As I have been guilty, not of indiscretion only, but of a 
crime,” said he, gravely, “ I must face the consequences, be 
they what they may.” Then Arminell drew a long breath. 
She recovered her composure for a moment. She recalled 
what had been her judgment on her father when she thought 
him guilty. 

“ I also,” she said, and her voice was harsh, “ I also have 
been guilty, not of folly only, but of a crime. I have sinned 
against my dear, dear father. I will not go to my Aunt 
Hermione. I will not go back to Orleigh.” 

“ But the repentant prodigal,” said Welsh, “in the Gospel 
story did return.” 

“ When the father was at home to receive him,” answered 
Arminell sharply. “There is not — ” She drew another long 
Ixseath ; and then said, “ I also will face the consequences.” 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 


THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 

Giles Saltren caught an express and whirled down into 
the west. He had not taken a ticket for Orleigh Road 
Station, as he did not choose to get out there, but at the 
nearest town, and there he hired a light trap in which he 
was driven to within half a mile of Chillacot, where he dis- 
missed the vehicle and walked on. 

He had resolved what to do. He would pay a hasty visit 
to his mother and then go on to the village, and perhaps 
call at the Rectory. He must show himself as much as 
possible. 

He had hardly left the trap, when, on turning a corner, 
he came on Samuel Ceely and Joan Melhuish walking to- 
gether, arm in arm. The sight brought the blood into his 
pale face. He was behind the pair, and he was able to 
notice the shabbiness of the old man and the ungainliness 
of his walk. This man was his father. To him, the 
meanest in the parish — not to his lordship, the highest — 
must he look as the author of his being. 

Joan Melhuish knew nothing of Samuel’s love affair with 
Marianne Welsh. She looked up to and admired the 
cripple, seeing him in the light of her girlish fancy, as the 
handsome, reckless gamekeeper. 

Giles’s foot lagged, but he kept his eyes steadily on the 
man slouching along before him. A new duty had fallen on 
him. He must provide for the cripple, without allowing the 


35 ° 


ARMINELL. 


secret of his relationship to become known, both for the 
sake of his mother and for that of the trusting Joan. 

Samuel Ceely heard his step and turned his head, dis- 
engaged his arm from the woman, and extended the muti- 
lated hand towards the young man. 

“ I say — 1 say ! ” began he, with his water-blue eyes fixed 
eagerly on Jingles. “I was promised a place ; Miss Ar- 
minell herself said I should have work, two shillings a day, 
sweeping, and now they say she has gone away and left no 
directions about me. If you can put in a word with my 
lady, or with my lord, mind that I was promised it.” 

“ How can you, Samuel, speak of my lord, when you 
know he is dead ? ” 

“ My lord is not dead,” answered the old man sharply. 
“ Master Giles is now my lord. I know what I am about.” 

“ And Samuel would do the work wonderfully well,” 
threw in Joan ; “ of all the beautifulest things that ever I see, 
is Samuel’s sweeping. If they were to give prizes for that as 
they do for ploughing, Samuel would be rich.” 

“I should like,” said Giles, “to have some particulars 
about my lord’s death.” 

“ ’Tis a terrible job, sure enough,” answered the woman. 
“And folks tell strange tales about it, not half of ’em is 
true. They’ve sat on him this afternoon.” 

“ The inquest already ? ” 

“Yes, to be sure. You see he died o’ Saturday, so he 
was crowned to-day. Couldn’t do it yesterday.” 

“And what was the verdict? I have been to Huxham 
to-day ” — this was the nearest town. 

“ Samuel can tell you better than I, sir, I don’t under- 
stand these things. But it do seem a funny thing to crown 
a man when he is dead.” 

“ What was the verdict ? ” asked Giles of Samuel. 

“ Well,” said the old man, shaking his head. “ It puzzled 
the jury a bit. Some said it was an accident, and some that 


ARMINELL. 


35 * 


it was murder ; but the worst of it all is, that it will drive 
my sweeping at two shillings out of the heads of my lady 
and Miss Arminell. They’ll be so took up wi’ ordering of 
mourning that they’ll not think of me — which is a crying 
shame. If his lordship could but have lived another week 
till 1 was settled into my sweeping and victuals, he might 
have died and welcome, but to go interfering like between 
me and two shillings, is that provoking I could swear. Not 
that I say it was his lordship’s fault, and I lay no blame on 

him, but folks do say, that ” 

“ There now, Samuel,” interrupted Joan. “ This is young 
Mr. Saltren you are speaking to and you are forgetting.” 

“ I’m not forgetting,” grumbled the old man ; “ don’t you 
be always of a flurrying me. Why, if I had had my situation 
as was promised me, we might have married and reared a 
family. I reckon one can do that on two shillings a day, 
and broken victuals from the kitchen. I might take the 
case into court and sue Captain Saltren for damages.” 

“ Hush, Samuel,” interposed Joan nervously, looking at 
Giles. 

“ I ain’t a-going to be hushed like a baby,” said Samuel 
Ceelv irritably ; “ I reckon if I don’t get my place, 
we can’t marry, and have a family, and where will my do- 
mestic happiness be? I tell you, them as chucked his 
lordship down the Cleave, chucked my family as was to be 
down with him, and if I can’t bring ’em into court for 
murdering his lordship, I can for murdering my family, of 
as healthy and red-cheeked children as might have been — 
— all gone,” said the old man grimly. “ All, head over 
heels down the Cleave, along of Lord Lamerton.” 

“How can you tklk so?” said Joan reproachfully. 
“ You know you have no children.” 

u I might have had — a dozen of ’em — seven girls and 
five boys, and I’d got the names for them all in my head. 
I might have had if I’d got the sweeping and the broken 


35 2 


ARMINELL. 


victuals as I was promised. What’s the difference in 
wickedness. I’d like to know ? ” asked the old man sententi- 
ously, and figuring out his proposition on Saltren’s coat 
with his crooked fingers. “ What’s the odds in wickedness, 
chucking over a horrible precipice a dozen sweet and 
innocent children as is, or as is to be, my family was as 
certain as new potatoes in June, and now — all gone, chucked 
down the Cleave. It is wickedness.” 

“ What is that you hinted about Captain Saltren ? ” asked 
Giles gravely. 

“ Oh, I say nothing,” answered old Samuel sourly. “ I 
don’t talk — I leave that to the woman.” 

“ It does seem a pity,” said Joan. “ Samuel would have 
been so useful. He might have gone about the park pick- 
ing up the sandwich-papers and the corks and bottles, after 
the public.” 

“ But,” said the young man, “ I really wish to know what 
the talk is about in which my father’s name is introduced.” 

“ Sir, sir ! folks’ tongues go like the clappers in the fields 
to drive away the blackbirds. A very little wind makes ’em 
rattle wonderfully.” 

“ But what have they said ? ” 

“ Well ” — Joan hesitated. She was a woman of delicate 
feeling. “ Well, sir, you must not think there is anything in 
it. Tongues cannot rest, and what they say to-day they un- 
say to-morrow. Some think that as the captain was so 
bitter against his lordship, and denounced him as ordained 
to destruction, that he may have had a helping hand in his 
death. But, sir, the captain did not speak so strong as Mr. 
Welsh, and nobody says that Mr. Welsh laid a finger on 
him. Why should they try to fix it on your father and not 
on your uncle ? But, sir, there is no call to fix it on any 
one. I might walk over the edge of the Cleave. If a man 
goes over the brink, I reckon he needs no help to make 
him go to the bottom.” 


ARMINELL. 


353 


“ The jury couldn’t agree, Joan,” said Samuel. “ Two of 
'em wanted to bring in wilful murder against the cap- 
tain.” 

“ So they did against his lordship in the case of Arkie 
Tubb. But that was nonsense. His lordship wasn’t there. 
And this is nonsense, just the same.” 

“But the captain was nigh. Mr. Macduff saw him.” 

“ Well, and he might have seen me, and he did see me a 
little while afore, as I was coming from Court with some 
baccy money for you, Samuel. That don’t follow that I 
killed his lordship. Mr. Macduff see’d also Farmer Yole’s old 
grey mare. Be you a going accusing of that old mare of 
having had a hoof in his lordship’s death ? ” 

“Where did Mr. Macduff see my father?” asked the 
young man. 

“ On the down. But he didn’t see him speak to his lord- 
ship, and he couldn’t tell to half an hour or three-quarters 
when it was. So the crowner discharged the jury, just as he 
did in the case of Arkie, and he got together another, and 
they found that his lordship had done it accidental.” 

“ For all that,” growled Samuel, “ folks will always say 
that the captain helped him over, as he was so set against 
him.” 

“Then,” said Joan, “it is a shame and a sin if they do. 
It is one thing to talk against a person, and another thing 
to lift a hand against him. I’ve said hard things of you, 
scores of times ; I’ve said you never ought to have taken the 
game and sent it off by the mail-cart when you was keeper, 
and that you couldn’t have blown off your hand if you’d not 
gone poaching, nor put out your hip if you’d been sober — 
I’ve said them cruel things scores o’ times, but never laid a 
finger on you to hurt you. I couldn’t do it — as you know 
very well.” 

She cast an affectionate glance at the cripple ; then she 
went on, “ Lord ! I forgive and excuse all the frolics of your 

z 


> 


354 


ARMINELL. 


youth ; and folks always says things rougher than they mean 
them.” 

Instead of going on to Chillacot, as he had at first in- 
tended, Giles now resolved on following the road to the 
village, and returning home later. He must lose no time 
in showing himself. He trusted that in the excitement 
caused by the death of Lord Lamerton no questions would 
be raised about Arminell, and any little suspicions which 
might have been wakened by her sudden departure would 
be allayed. 

He was not altogether easy about his father, nor satisfied 
with Joan’s justification of him. That the jury had returned 
a verdict of accidental death was a relief to his mind, but it 
made him uncomfortable to think that suspicion against his 
father should be entertained. Giles had little or no know- 
ledge of his father’s new craze. He knew that the captain 
was a fanatic who went heart and soul with whatever com- 
mended itself to his reason or prejudice. At one time he 
took up hotly the subject of vegetarianism, then he became 
infatuated with Anglo-Israelism, then he believed vehemently 
in a quack syrup he saw advertised in a Christian paper, 
warranted to cure all disorders ; after that he became posses- 
sed with the teetotal mania, and attributed all the evils in the 
world, war, plagues, earthquakes, popery, and foot-and-mouth 
disease to the use of alcohol. Recently he had combined 
his religious vagaries with political theories, and had made 
a strange stir-about of both. His trouble at losing his situ- 
ation as captain of the manganese mine, and his irritation 
against the railway company for wanting Chillacot had com- 
bined to work him into a condition of unusual excitability. 
Giles had heard that his father had seen a vision, but of 
what sort he had not inquired, because he was entirely out 
of sympathy with the spiritual exaltations and fancies of his 
father. 

The village of Orleigh was not what is commonly termed 


ARM IN ELL. 


355 


a “ church town,” that is to say, it was not clustered about 
the church, which stood in the park, near the mansion of 
the Ingletts. In ancient days, when the population was 
sparse, the priest drew his largest congregation from the 
manor house, and therein he lived as chaplain and tutor ; 
consequently in many places we find the parish church 
situated close to the manor house, and away from the 
village which had grown up later. It was so at Orleigh. The 
village consisted of a green, with an old tree in the midst, 
an ale-house, the Lamerton Arms, a combined grocery and 
grocery store, which was also post-office, a blacksmith’s 
forge, and half-a-dozen picturesque cottages white-washed, 
with red windows and thatched roofs. Most of these 
houses had flower gardens before their doors, encouraged 
thereto by an annual Floricultural Society which gave 
prizes to those villagers who had the neatest, most cheerful 
and varied gardens. 

Jingles found knots of men standing about the green, 
some were coming out of, others about to enter the public- 
house door; another knot clustered about the forge. 
Women were not wanting, to throw in words. 

The dusk of evening had settled in, so that at first none 
noticed the approach of the young man. He came, not by 
the road, but across by the blacksmith’s garden, where a 
short cut saved a round. Thus he was in the midst of the 
men before they were aware that he was near. 

He could not catch all that was being said, but he heard 
that the death of Lord Lamerton occupied their minds and 
exercised their tongues. His father’s name was also freely 
bandied about. 

“ I say,” exclaimed the village tailor, in a voice like that 
of a corncrake, “ I say that Cap’n Saltren did it. What do 
you consider the reason why the coroner discharged the 
jury and called another? I know, if you do not. You 
don’t perhaps happen to know, but I do, that Marianne 


ARMINELL. 


356 

Saltren’s aunt, old Betsy Welsh, washes for the coroner. 
Nothing more likely, were he to allow a verdict against the 
captain, than that his shirt-fronts would come home iron- 
moulded. Don’t tell me there was no evidence. Evidence 
is always to be had if looked for. Evidence is like snails’ 
horns, thrust forth or drawn in, according to circumstances. 
If the coroner had wanted evidence, lie could have had it. 
But he was thinking of his shirt-front, and he, maybe, going 
out to a dinner-party. It is easy done, boil an old nail 
along with the clothes, and pounds worth of linen is spoiled. 
I don’t blame him,” concluded the tailor sententiously. 
“ Human nature is human nature.” 

“And,” shouted a miner, “facts is facts”— but he pro- 
nounced them fax. 

“ Lord Lamerton,” said a second miner, “ wanted to 
make a new road, and carry it to Chillacot. The cap’n 
didn’t like it, he didn’t want to have a station there. He 
was set against his lordship on that account, for his lordship 
was a director. If you can prove to me that his lordship 
wasn’t a director, then I shall admit he may have come by 
his death naturally. I say naught against his lordship for 
not wanting to have his house undermined, but I do say 
that the cap’n acted unreasonably and wrongly in not 
letting the company have Chillacot for the station. If he’d 
have done that, his lordship would have found us work on 
the road.” 

“ Ah, Gloyne,” called the other miner, “ that’s it. Fax is 

fax. ’ 


CHAPTER XXXVIII, 


THE RISE OF THE TIDE. 

“Come here," shouted the blacksmith, who was outside his 
shop, and still wore his apron, and the smut and rust on his 
hands and face. “Come here, Master Jingles. You’ve 
come into the midst of us, and we want to know something 
from you. Where is your father ? We’ve seen nothing of 
him since Friday. If he has not been at mischief, why 
don’t he come forward like a man ? Why don’t your father 
show his face ? He ain’t a tortoise, privileged to draw it in, 
or a hedgehog, at liberty to coil it up. Where is he? He 
is not at home. If he is hiding, what is he hiding from un- 
less he be guilty ? ” 

“He may have gone after work,” said young Saltren. 

“ I heard him say,” said the shoemaker, “that his lord- 
ship was doomed to destruction.” 

“ I know he said it,” answered the blacksmith, “ and I 
,ask, is a man like to make a prophecy and not try to make 
what he said come to pass ? ” 

“ Human nature is human nature,” threw in the tailor. 

“ And fax is fax,” added the miner. 

“ Then,” pursued the blacksmith, “let us look at things 
as they affect us. His lordship has kept about twenty-three 
horses — hunters, cobs, ponies and carriage horses — and 
each has four hoofs, and all wants shoeing once a month, 


35 » 


ARMINELL. 


and some every fortnight. That brings me in a good part' 
of my living. Very well. I ask all who hear me, is his 
lordship like to keep such a stud now he is dead ? Is he 
like to want hunters ? I grant you, for the sake of argu- 
ment, that the young lady and young gentleman will have 
their cobs and ponies, but will there be anything like as 
many horses kept as there have been ? No, in reason there 
cannot be. So you may consider what a loss to me is the 
death of his lordship. My worst personal enemy couldn’t 
have hit me harder than when he knocked Lord Lamerton 
over the Cleave. He as much as knocked a dozen or 
fourteen horses over with him, each with four hoofs, at 
sixpence a shoe, and shod, let us say, eighteen times in the 
year.” 

“ You are right,” put in the tailor, “landed property is 
tied up, and his lordship’s property is tied up — tied up and 
sealed like mail bags— till the young lord comes of age, 
which will not be for eleven years. So, Blatchford,” — ad- 
dressing the blacksmith — “ you must multiply your horses 
by eleven.” 

“ That makes,” said the smith, working out the sum in 
chalk on the shutter of the shop, “ say fourteen horses 
eighteen times — two hundred and two — and by four — and 
again by eleven — and halved because of sixpences, that 
makes five hundred and fifty-four pounds ; then there were 
odd jobs, but them I won’t reckon. Whoever chucked 
Lord Lamerton down the Cleave chucked five hundred and 
fifty-four pounds of as honestly-earned money as ever was* 
got, belonging to me, down along with him.” 

“ Fax is fax,” said the miner. 

“ And human nature is human nature to feel it,” added 
the tailor. 

“ There’s another thing to be considered,” said a game- 
keeper. “ In the proper sporting season, my lord had down 
scores of gentlemen to shoot his covers, and that brought 


ARMINELL. 


359 


me in a good many sovereigns and half-sovs. Now, I’d 
like to know, with the family in mourning, and the young 
lord not able to handle a gun, will there be a house full of 
gentlemen ? It wouldn’t be decent. And that means the 
loss of twenty pound to me — if one penny.” 

“Nor is that all,” said the tailor, “you’ll have Macduff to 
keep an eye on you, not my lord. There’ll be no more 
chucking of hampers into the goods train as it passes Cop- 
ley Wood, I reckon.” 

The keeper made no other reply than a growl, and drew 
back. 

“ There is my daughter Jane, scullery-maid at the Park,” 
said the shoemaker, “ learning to be a cook. If her lady- 
ship shuts up the house, and leaves the place, what will 
become of Jane ? It isn’t the place I grieve for, nor the 
loss of learning, for places ask to be filled now, and any 
one will be taken as cook, if she can do no more than 
boil water — but it is the perquisites. My wife was uncom- 
mon fond of jellies and sweets of all sorts, and I don’t suppose 
these are to be picked off hedges, when the house is empty.” 

“ Here comes Farmer Labett,” exclaimed the tailor. “ I 
say, Mr. Labett, did not his lordship let off five-and-twenty 
per cent, from his rents last fall ? ”, 

“ That is no concern of yours,” replied the farmer. 

“ But it does concern you,” retorted the tailor, “ for now 
that his lordship is dead, the property is tied up and put in 
the hands of trustees, and trustees can’t remit rents. If 
they were to do so, the young lord, when he comes of age, 
might be down on them and make them refund out of their 
own pockets. So that away over the rocks, down the 
Cleave, went twenty-five per cent, abatement when his lord- 
ship fell, or was helped over.” 

“ Ah ! ” groaned the shoemaker, “ and all them jellies, 
and b lane-mange, and custards was chucked down along of 
him.” 


360 


ARMINELL. 


“And now,” said another, “ Macduff will have the rule. 
Afore, if we didn’t like wl^at Macduff ordained, we could 
go direct to his lordship, but now there will be no one above 
Macduff but trustees, and trustees won’t meddle. That 
will be a pretty state of things, and his wife to ride in a 
victoria, too.” 

Then a woman called Tregose pushed her way through 
the throng, and with loud voice expressed her views. 

“ I don’t see what occasion you men have to grumble. 
Don’t y’ see that the family will have to go into mourning, 
and so get rid of their colours, and we shall get them. 
There’s Miss Arminell’s terra-cotta I’ve had my eye on for 
my Louisa, but I never reckoned on having it so soon. 
There never was a wind blowed,” argued *Mrs. Tregose, 
“ that was an unmixed evil, and didn’t blow somebody 
good. If this here wind have blowed fourteen horses, and 
jellies and twenty-five per cent, and the keeper’s tips over 
the Cleave — it ha’ blowed a terra-cotta gown on to my 
Louisa.” 

“ But,”.argyed the tailor in his strident voice, “ supposing, 
in consequence of the death, that her ladyship and the 
young lady and the little lord give up living here, and go 
for education to London or abroad, where will you be, Mrs. 
Tr.gose, for their cast gowns ? Your Louisa ain’t going to 
wear that terra-cotta for eleven years, I reckon.” 

“ There’s something in that,” assented the woman, and 
her .mouth fell. “ Yes,” she said, after a pause for con- 
sideration, “ who can tell how many beautiful dresses and 
bonnets and mantles have gone over the Cleave along with 
the blanc-mange, and the horses and the five-and-twenty 
per cent.? I’m uncommon sorry now his lordship is dead.” 

“I’ve been credibly informed,” said the tailor, “that his 
lordship laid claim to Chillacot, and said that because old 
Gaffer Saltren squatted there, that did not constitute a title. 
Does it give a rook a title to a Scotch fir because he builds 


ARMINELL. 


3 6x 


a nest on it ? Can the rook dispose of the timber ? Can 
it refuse to allow the tree to be cut down and sawn up, for 
and because he have sat on the top of it ? I’ve an old 
brood*sow in my stye. Does the stye belong to the sow or 
to me ? ” 

“ Fax is fax,” assented the miner. 

“And,” urged the blacksmith, “if his lordship wanted to 
get the land back, why not? If I lend my ladder to Farmer 
Eggins, haven’t I a right to reclaim it ? His lordship asked 
for the land back, not because he wanted it for himself, but 
in the interest of the public, to give us a station nigh at 
hand, instead of forcing us to walk three and a half or four 
miles, and sweat terrible on a summer’s day. And his lord- 
ship intended to run a new road to Chillacot, where the 
station was to be, and so find work for hands out of employ, 
and he said it would cost him a thousand pounds. And 
now. there is the new road and all it would have cost as 
good as thrown over the Cleave along with his lordship.” 

“ The captain — he did it,” shouted the blacksmith, 

“Fax speak, they are fax. Skin me alive, if they baint,” 
said the miner. 

Giles Inglett Saltren had heard enough. He raised his 
voice and said, “ Mr. Blatchford, and the rest of you — some 
insinuate, others openly assert that my father has been 
guilty of an odious crime, that he has had a hand in the 
death of Lord Lamerton.” 

He was interrupted by shouts of “ He has, he has ! We 
know it ! ” 

“How do you know it? You only suppose it. You 
have no grounds absolutely, no grounds for basing such a 
supposition. The coroner, as yourselves admit, refused to 
listen to the charge.” 

A voice: “He was afraid of having his shirt-fronts 
moulded.” 

“ Here, again, you bring an accusation as unfounded as 


362 


ARM1NELL. 


it is absurd, against an honourable man and a Crown 
official. If you had been able to produce a particle of 
evidence against my father, a particle of evidence to show 
that what you imagine is not as hollow as a dream, the 
coroner would have hearkened and acted. Are you aware 
that this bandying of accusations is an indictable offence ? 
My father has not hurt you in any way.” 

This elicited a chorus of cries. 

“ He has spoiled my shoeing.” “ He has prevented the 
making of the road.” “ My wife will never have blanc-mange 
again.” And Samuel Ceely, now arrived on the scene, in 
whispering voice added, “ All my beautiful darlings — twelve 
of them, as healthy as apples, and took their vaccination 
well— all gone down the Cleave.” 

It really seemed as if the happiness, the hopes, the 
prosperity of all Orleigh, had gone over the edge of the cliff 
with his lordship. 

“ I repeat it,” exclaimed the young man, waxing warm ; 

“ I repeat it, my father never did you an injury. You are 
now charging him with hurting you, because you suffer 
through his lordship’s death, and you are eager to find some 
one on whom to cast blame. As for any real sorrow and 
sympathy, you have none ; wrapped up in your petty and 
selfish ends.” 

A voice : “ Fax is fax — he did kill Lord Lamerton.” 

The tailor : “ Human nature is human nature, and 
nobody can deny he prophesied my lord’s death.” 

“ I dare you to charge my father with the crime,” cried 
young Saltren. “ I warn you. I have laid by a little 
money, and I will spend it in prosecuting the man who 
does.” 

“We all do. Prosecute the parish,” rose in a general, 
shout. 

“ My father is incapable of the crime.” 

“We have no quarrel with you, young Jingles,” roared a 


ARMINELL. 363 

miner. “ Our contention is with the captain. Mates, what 
do y’ say ? Shall we pay him a visit ? ” 

“ Aye — aye ! ” from all sides. ** Let us show him our 
minds.” 

A boisterous voice exclaimed : “We’ll serve him out for 
taking the bread out of our mouths. We’ll tumble his 
house about his ears. He sha’n’t stand in our light any more.” 

And another called, “If you want to prosecute us, we’ll 
provide you with occasion.” 

Then a stone was flung, which struck Jingles on the head 
and knocked him down. 

For a few minutes the young man was unconscious, or 
rather confused, he never quite lost his senses. The 
women clustered about him, and Mrs. Tregose threw water 
in his face. 

He speedily gathered his faculties together, and stood up, 
rather angry than hurt, to see that nearly all the men had 
departed. The act of violence, instead of quelling the 
excitement, had stirred it to greater heat ; and the body of 
men, the miners, labourers, the blacksmith, tailor, and shoe- 
maker, their sons and apprentices, went off in a shouting, 
gesticulating rabble in the direction of the Cleave, not of 
Chillacot, but of the down overhanging it. 

In a moment the latent savage, suppressed in those 
orderly men, was awake and asserting itself. Mr. Welsh 
had spoken the truth when he told Jingles that the 
destiuctive passion w r as to be found in all; it was aroused 
now. The blacksmith, the tailor, the shoemaker, the 
labourers, had all in their several ways been working con- 
structively all their life, one to make shoes and harrows, 
one to shape trotisers and waistcoats, one to put together 
boots, others to build, and plant, and stack, and roof, and 
now, all at once, an appeal came to the suppressed barbarian 
in each, the chained madman in the asylum, and the de- 
structive faculty was loose and rioting in its freedom. 


3^4 


ARMINELL. 


Thomasine Kite stood before the young man. <( Now, 
then,” she said half mockingly, “ if you want to save your 
mother out of the house before the roof is broke in, you 
' must make haste. Come along with me.” 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 


THE FLOW OF THE TIDE. 

Captain Saltren returned at night to sleep at Chillacot, 
but he wandered during the day in the woods, with his 
Bible in his pocket or in his hand, now reading how Gideon 
was raised up to deliver Israel from Midian, and Samson 
was set apart from his mother’s womb to smite the Philis- 
tines, then sitting at the edge of the quarry brooding over 
his thoughts. 

He was not able to fix his mind for long on anything, 
and he found that the Scripture only interested and arrested 
his attention so far as it touched on analogous trains of 
ideas. For the first time in his life a chilling sense of 
doubt, a cold suspicion of error stole over his heart. When 
this was the case he was for a moment in agony, his nerves 
tingled, his throat contracted, and a clammy sweat broke 
out over his face. The fit passed, and he was again confi- 
dent, and in his confidence strong. He raised his voice 
and intoned a hymn, then became frightened at the sound, 
and stopped in the midst of a stanza. 

Presently he recalled his wife’s deceptions and how his 
heart had foamed and leaped at the thought of the wrong 
done her and himself, and how he had nourished a deadly 
hatred against Lord Lamerton on that account. Now he 
knew that there had been no occasion for this hatred. 


ARM I NELL. 


366 

What had he done to his lordship ? Had he really with 
his hand thrust him over the precipice, or had the nobleman 
fallen in stepping back to avoid the blow. Either way the 
guilt, if guilt there were, rested on Saltren’s head ; but the 
captain would not listen to the ever welling-up suggestion 
that there was guilt. It was not he who had killed his 
lordship, it was the hand of God that had slain him, be- 
cause the hand of human justice had failed to reach him. 
The captain entertained little or no personal fear — he was 
ready, if it were the will of heaven, to appear before magis- 
trates and juries; before them he would testify as the 
apostles had testified. If it were the will of heaven that he 
should die on the gallows, he was ready to ascend the 
scaffold, sure of receivin g the crown of glory ; perhaps the 
world was not ripe to receive his mission. 

When that wave of horror swept over him, no fear of the 
consequences of his act helped to chill the wave ; his only 
horrible apprehension was lest he should have made a 
mistake. This it was that lowered his pulsation, turned 
his lips blue, and made a cloud come between him and the 
landscape. He fought against the doubt, battled with k as 
against a temptation of the Evil One, but as often as he 
overcame it, it returned. The discovery that he had been 
deceived by Marianne into believing that Lord Lamerton 
had njured him, was the little rift in his hitherto unbroken 
all-enveloping faith ; but even now he had no doubt about 
the vision, but only as to its purport. That he had seen 
and heard all that he professed to have seen and heard— 
that he believed still, but he feared and quaked with appre- 
hension lest he should have misread his revelation. 

It is not easy, rather is it impossible, for a man of educa- 
tion surrounded as he has been from infancy by ten 
thousand influences to which the inferior classes are not 
subjected, to understand the self-delusion of such a man. 

The critical, sceptical spirit is developed in this century 


ARMINELL. 


367 


among the cultured classes at an early age, and the child of 
the present day begins with a Dubito not with a Credo. 
Where there is no conviction there can be no enthusiasm, 
for enthusiasm is the flame tnat dances about the glowing 
coals of belief ; and where no fire is, there can be no flame. 
We allow of any amount of professions, but not of con- 
viction. Zeal is as much a mark of bad breeding as a 
hoarse guffaw. 

Enthusiasms are only endurable when affectations, to be 
put on and put off at pleasure ; to be trifled with, not to be 
possessed by. This is an age of toleration ; we tolerate 
everything but what is earnest, and we lavish our adulation 
on the pretence, not the reality of sincerity. For we know 
that a genuine enthusiasm is unsuitable for social inter- 
course ; he who is carried away by it is carried beyond the 
limits of that toleration which allows a little of everything, 
but exclusiveness to none. He who harbours a belief is 
not suffered to obtrude it ; if he be a teetotaller he must 
hide his blue ribbon ; if a Home Ruler, must joke over his 
shamrock ; if a Quaker, must dress in colours ; if a Catholic, 
eat meat on Good Friday. The apostle expressed his desire 
to be all things to all men ; we have made universal what 
was then a possibility only to one, we are all things to all 
men, only sincere neither to ourselves nor to any one. We 
are like children’s penny watches that mark any hour the 
wearers desire, not chronometers that fix the time for all. 
How can we be chronometers when we have no main 
springs, or if we had them, wilfully break them. 

We regard all enthusiasms as forms of fever, and quaran- 
tine those infected by them ; we watch ourselves against 
them, we are uneasy when the symptoms appear among 
our children. At the least quickening of the pulse and 
kindling of the eye we fly to our medicine chests for a 
spiritual narcotic or a sceptical lowering draught. 

The new method of dealing with fevers is to plunge the 


368 ARMINELL. 

patients in cold water, the reverse of the old method, which 
was to bring out the heat ; and we apply this improved 
system to our spiritual fevers, to all these mental attacks 
bred of convictions. We subdue them with the douche 
and ice, and the wet blanket. When the priests of Baal 
invoked their god on Mount Carmel, they leaped upon the 
altar, and cut themselves with knives ; but Elijah looked 
on with a supercilious smile, and invited those who followed 
him to pour buckets of water over his sacrifice ; and with 
what pity, what contempt we regard all such as are pos- 
sessed with the divine fury, and are ready to suffer and* 
make themselves ridiculous for their god ; how we water 
our oblations, and make sure that the sticks on our altar 
are green and incombustible ; how, if a little spark appears, 
or a spiral of smoke arises, we turn on hydrants, and our 
friends rush to our aid with the buckets, and we do not 
breathe freely till spark and smoke are subdued. 

But then, because altars are erected for burnt sacrifices, 
and a burnt sacrifice is unsavoury, expensive, and un- 
fashionable, we thrust a little coloured tin-foil in among the 
wet sticks, and protest how natural, how like real fire it 
looks, and we prostrate ourselves before it in mock homage. 

No dread of enthusiasm, no shrinking from conviction, is 
found among the uneducated, and the semi-educated. 
Among them enthusiasm is the token of the divine afflatus, 
as madness is regarded among savages. They respect it, 
they bring fuel to feed it, they allow it to burst into extrava- 
gance, to riot over reason, and to consume every particle of 
common sense. The corrective, judicial faculty, the balance 
wheel is deficient ; the strength, not the quality of a con- 
viction gives it its command to the respect and adhesion of 
the many. If I were to break out of Bedlam with the one 
fixed idea in me that I had eyes at the ends of my ten toes, 
wherewith I saw everything that went on in the world, and 
with my big toes saw what was to be in th£ future ; and if I 


ARMINELL. 


369 X 

went up and down England pleaching this and declaring 
what I saw with my toes, and continued preaching it with 
the fire of perfect sincerity for a twelvemonth, I would shake 
the hold of the Established Church on the hearts of the 
people, and make the work of the Liberation Society easy. 
Half England would form the Church of the seeing toes, 
but in that Church I would not number any of the cultured. 

As for us, \^e get over our enthusiasms early, as we cut 
our teeth, and we lose them as rapidly. Primeval man 
wore his teeth till he died, so do savages of the present 
day ; but the very milk teeth of our infants decay. We are 
so familiar with the fact that we assume that all good sets 
of teeth are false, that if we keep here and there a fang in 
our jaws, it is carious, and only preserved as a peg to which 
to wire our sham molars and front teeth. It is so unusual 
to find any one with a real set, that we look on such a 
person with suspicion as having in him a stain of barbarous 
blood. 

It is obvious that this defect of real teeth in our jaws has 
its advantages. It allows us to change our teeth when we 
find those we have hitherto worn inconvenient or out of 
fashion. 

It is the same with our convictions, we lose them early, 
all the inside disappears, leaving but the exterior enamel, 
and that breaks away finally. 

But then, we do not open our mouths to our friends and 
in society, exposing our deficiencies. We replace what is 
lost by what looks well, and hold them in position by the 
fragments of early belief that still project ; and when these 
artificial articles prove irksome we change them. This is 
how it is that, for instance, in politics, a man may profess 
to-day one thing, and something quite different to-morrow. 
No one is shocked, every one understands that this exhibi- 
tion to-day is unreal, and that to-morrow also unreal. 

But, together with the advantage afforded by this power 

2 A 


370 


ARMINELL. 


of altering our sets, there is a disadvantage which must not 
be left unnoticed, which is that the biting and holding 
power in them is not equal to that possessed by the natural 
articles. 

Patience Kite came upon the captain as he stood in 
a dream, Bible in hand, but not reading, meditating, and 
looking far away, yet seeing nothing. She roused him with 
a hand on his shoulder. « 

“ Do you know what they are about ? ” 

“ They ! Who ? ” 

“ All the parish — the men ; the miners out of work, the 
day labourers, the tradesmen, all.” 

Saltren shook his head ; he desired to be left alone to his 
thoughts, his prayers, his Bible reading. 

“ They are destroying your house,” said Patience, shaking 
him, to rouse him, as she would have shaken a sleeper. 

“ My house ? Chiilacot ? ” 

“ Yes, they are ; they are breaking up the rock on the 
Cleave, and throwing it down on your roof, and smashing 
it in.” 

“ My house ! Chiilacot ? ” He was still absent in mind. 
He could not at once withdraw his thoughts from where 
they had strayed to matters so closely concerning himself. 

“ It is true ; Tamsine came running to me to tell me 
about it. Your son managed to get into the house and 
bring his mother out, and Marianne is like one in a fit, she 
cannot speak. — that , if you wish it, is a miracle. The men 
have set picks and crowbars to work to tumble the stones 
down on your house and garden, and bury them. Slates 
and windows are smashed already, and the shrubs broken 
down in your garden.” 

“ My house ! — why ? ” 

“ Why ? Because you won’t let the railway come along 
there, and the parish is angry, and thinks the station will be 
set further from the village. The fellows say you, with your 


ARMINELL. 37 1 

obstinacy, are standing in the way of improvement, and 
driving trade and money out of the place.” 

Stephen Saltren looked at Mrs. Kite with dazed eyes. 
He could not receive all she said, but he allowed her to 
lead him through the woods in the direction of Chillacot. 
He came out with her at the spot where he had stood before 
and looked on whilst the body of Lord Lamerton was re- 
moved from the place where it had fallen. 

He stood there now, and looked again, and saw the 
destruction of the house he loved. A crowd of men and 
boys were on the down, shouting, laughing, some working, 
others encouraging them. Those who had crowbars drove 
them into the turf, and worked through to the rock that 
came up close to the surface ; then they levered the stones 
through clefts and faults, out of place, and sent them 
plunging over the edge of the precipice, accompanied by 
clouds of dust, and avalanches of rubble. As each piece 
went leaping and rolling down it was saluted with a cheer, 
and the men leaned over the edge of the cliff to see where 
it fell, and what amount of damage was done by it. 

The roof of Chillacot was broken through in several places; 
the slates at the top of the chimney, set on edge to divert 
the draught from blowing down it, were knocked off. One 
huge block had overleaped the house, torn a track through 
the flower-bed in front, had beat down the entrance gate 
and there halted, seated on the shattered gate. 

Saltren stood looking on with apparent indifference, be- 
cause he was still unable to realise what was being done ; 
but the full importance of the fact that his home was being 
wrecked came on him with a sudden rush, the blood flew 
into his face, he uttered a shout of rage, plunged through 
the bushes, down the hill-side, dashed through the stream 
below in the valley, ran up to his cottage, and for a moment 
stood shaking his fist in inarticulate wrath at the men, who 
looked down on him, laughing and jeering, from the cliff. 


372 


ARMINELL. 


He bad forgotten everything now except what was before 
him, and his anger made him blind and speechless. This 
was his house, built by his father ; this his garden, tilled 
by his own hands. Who had a right to touch his pro- 
perty ? 

The blacksmith from above shouted to him to stand off, 
another mass of rock was dislodged and would fall. Saltren 
could see what menaced. On the piece of rock grew a 
thorn-tree, and the thorn was swaying against the sky with 
the exertions of the men, leaning on their levers, snapping 
the ligatures of root-fibre, and opening the joints in the 
stone. But Saltren had no fear for himself in his fury at 
the outrage being done him. Regardless of the warning 
cries addressed to him, he strode over the broken gate, and 
entered his partially ruined house. 

The blacksmith, alarmed, shouted to the miners engaged 
on the levers to desist from their work, as Saltren was in the 
house below ; but they replied that the stone was moving, 
the crack widening between it and the rock, and that to 
arrest it was now impossible. 

The men held their breath, and were for the moment 
afraid of the consequence of what they had done. But they 
breathed freely a moment later, as they saw the captain 
emerge from his house and cross the garden, and take up a 
place out of the reach of danger. What they did not notice, 
or disregarded, was that he had brought out his gun with him. 
Stephen stood where he could command those on the cliff, 
and levelled and cocked his gun. His strong jaws were 
set ; his dark eyebrows drawn over his flashing eyes ; there 
was not a tremor in his muscles. He watched the swaying 
thorn ; he saw that in another moment it would come down 
valong with the mass of rock on which it stood, and which it 
grappled with its claw-like roots. 

“ What are you about, Cap’n ? ” asked Mrs. Kite, coming 
up hastily. 


ARMINELL. 373 

He turned his head, smiled bitterly, and touched the 
barrel of his gun. 

“ When that rock comes down,” he said, “ one of those 
above shall follow it.” 

At that moment the block parted from the parent rock, 
and whirled beneath, followed by a train of dust. It struck 
the corner of the chimney, sent the stones of which it was 
built flying in all directions, and crashed through the roof, 
but left the thorn-bush athwart the gap it had torn. 

Before Saltren could discharge his gun, Mrs. Kite struck 
it up, and he fired it into the air. 

“ You fool ! ” she said, and then burst into a harsh laugh. 
“You find fault with others for doing that you approve 
yourself. You would undermine Orleigh, and object to 
Chillacot being overthrown.” 


CHAPTER XL. 


THE END OF A DELUSION. 

Captain Saltren remained motionless, with his gun raised, 
ns it had been struck up by ‘ Patience Kite, for several 
minutes; then he slowly lowered it, and turned his face to 
her. The troubled expression which of late had passed 
over it at intervals returned. The jaw was no longer set, 
and the red spots of anger had faded from his cheeks. The 
momentary character of decision his face had assumed was 
gone, and now the lips trembled feebly. 

“What was that you said?’’* he asked. 

Patience laughed, and pointed to the crag. 

“See,” she exclaimed, ‘ the gun has frightened the men; 
and there comes the policeman with your son over the 
down ! ” She laughed again. “ How the fellows run ! 
After all, men are cowards.” 

“ What was that you said when I was about to fire ? ” 
asked the captain again. 

“ Said ? — why, what is true. You wanted to rattle down 
his lordship’s house, and killed him because he refused to 
allow it to be done ; and now you object to having your 
own shaken down. But there, that is the way of men.” 

Saltren remained brooding in thought, with his eyes on 
the ground, and the end of the gun resting where his eyes 
fell. 


ARMINELL. 


375 


Mrs. Kite taunted him. 

“You kill the man who won’t let you pull down his 
house, and you would kill the man who throws down your.". 
What are you going to do now ? Prosecute them for the 
mischief, and make them patch up again what they have 
broken ? or will you give up the point, and let them have 
their own way, and the railway to run here, with a station to 
Chillacot ? ” 

He did not answer. He was considering Mrs. Kite’s re- 
proach, not her question. Presently he threw the gun 
away, and turned from his wrecked house. 

“ It is true,” he said. “ Our ways are unequal; it is very 
true.” He put his hand over his face, and passed it before 
his eyes ; his hand was shaking. “ 1 will go back to the 
Owl’s Nest,” he said in a low tone. 

“ What ! Leave your house ? Do you not want to 
secure what has not been broken? ” 

“ I do not care about my house. I do not care about 
anything in it.” 

“ But will you not go and see Marianne — your wife ? 
You do not know where she is, into what place your son 
took her, and whether she is ill ? ” 

He looked at her with a mazed expression, almost as if 
he were out of his senses, and said slowly — 

“ I do not care about her any more.” Then, dimly see- 
ing that this calmness needed justification, he added, “I 
have condemned in others what I allow in myself. I have 
measured to one in this way, and to myself in that.” 

He turned away, and went slowly along the brook to the 
point at which he had crossed it with Patience Kite after 
the death of Lord Lamerton, when she led him into the 
covert of the woods. Mrs. Kite accompanied him 
now. 

They ascended the further hillside together, passing 
through the coppice, and he remained silent, mechanically 


376 


ARMINELL. 


thrusting the oak-boughs apart. lie seemed to see, to feel 
nothing, so occupied was he with his own thoughts. 

Presently he came out on the open patch where he had 
stood twice before, once to watch the removal of his victim, 
next to see the destruction of his house. There now he 
halted, and brushed his arms down, first the left, then 
the right with his hands, then passed them over his 
shoulders as though he were sweeping off him something 
that clung to and encumbered him. 

“They are all gone,” said Mrs. Kite, pointing to the 
headland, “ and Jingles is bringing the policeman down to 
see the mischief that has been done.” 

Captain Saltren stood and looked across the valley, but 
not at his house ; he seemed to have forgotten about it, or 
lost all concern in it ; he looked away from it, higher up, to 
the spot whence Lord Lamerton had fallen. Mrs. Kite was 
puzzled at the expression in his face, and at his peculiar 
manner. She had never thought highly of him, now she 
supposed he was losing his head. Every now and then he 
put up his hand over his mouth to conceal the contraction 
and quivering of the lips ; and once she heard him utter a 
sound which might have been a laugh, but was more like a 
sob, not in his throat, but in his breast. 

That dread of having been a prey to delusions, which had 
passed over. him before, had gained consistency, and 
burdened him insupportablv. Opposite him was the head- 
land whence he had precipitated Lord Lamerton, and now 
he asked himself why he had done it. Because he believed 
his lordship had hurt him in his family relations ? In that 
he was mistaken. Because his lordship stopped the 
mine and threw him out of work rather than have his 
house imperilled ? He himself was as resolute in resisting 
an attack on his own property, an interference with his own 
house. Because his lordship had occasioned the death of 
Arkie Tubb? Now, as the veils of prejudice fell, one after 


ARMINELL. 


. 377 


another, he saw that no guilt attached to his lordship on 
that account. The boy had gone in to save Mrs. Kite. It 
was her fault that he was crushed. She had allowed her 
daughter, Arkie, all who looked on to believe she was 
endangered, when she had placed herself in a position of 
security. The only way in which he could allay the unrest 
in his mind was to repeat again and again to himself, “ It 
was ordained. The Lord revealed it. There were reasons 
which I did not know.” 

There is a moment, we are told by those who have 
ascended in a balloon, when the cord is cut, and the solid 
earth is seen to begin to drift below, the trees to dance, and 
the towers to slide away, that an all-but over-powering sense 
of fear and inclination comes on one to leap from the car 
at the risk of being dashed to pieces. It is said that the 
panic produced by an earthquake exceeds every other terror. 
When a ship is storm-tossed, escape is possible in a boat, 
when a house is on fire there are feather-beds into which 
we can leap ; but when the earth is insecure, then we have 
nowhere to which we can flee, nothing to which we can 
look. 

With Captain Saltren, his religious convictions were 
what was most stable. Everything else glided before him 
as a dream, but he kept his feet on those things that be- 
longed to the spiritual world, as if they were adamantine 
foundations. And now he was being, like an aeronaut, 
caught away, and these shifted under his eyes ; like one in 
an earthquake, he felt the strong bases rock beneath him. 
The sense of terror that passed over him was akin to 
despair ; but the last cord was not snapped, and that was 
the firmest of all— his visions and revelations. 

“Of all queer folks,” said Mrs. Kite, “ I reckon you are 
the queerest, captain. I thought so from the time I first 
saw you come and pray on you 1 raft in the pond, and when 
I heard what a tale you had made out of Miss Arminell 


ARMINELL. 


378 

throwing a book at you, then I did begin to believe you 
were not right in your mind ; now I’m sure of it.” 

Captain Saltren looked dreamily at her; but in that 
dreamy look was pain. 

“ That was, to be sure, a wonderful tale,” pursued Mrs. 
Kite, losing patience with him. “ An angel from Heaven 
cast the Everlasting Gospel down to y' \ was that it? ” 

He nodded, but said nothing. 

“And I seed Miss Arminell do it.” 

His eyes opened wide with alarm. 

“ What the name of the book was, I do not mind ; in- 
deed, I do not know, because I cannot read ; but I have 
got the book, and can show it you, and you who are a 
scholar can read it through from the first word to the last.” 

“ You have the book ? ” 

“ I have ; when it fell it went under your raft, but it did 
not sink, it came up after on the other side, and when you 
were gone I fished it out, and I have it now.” 

“ It was red as blood.” 

“Aye, and the paint came off on my fingers, but I dried 
it in the sun; and I have the book now, not in the Owl’s 
Nest, but in a cupboard of the back kitchen o’ my old 
house.” 

“ His likeness was on it.” 

“ That I can’t say. There is a head of a man.” 

“ The head of Lord Lamerton.” 

“ It don’t look like it ; the man has black hair and a 
beard, and his lordship had no beard, and his hair was 
light brown.” 

A shudder came over the captain. Was his last, his 
firmest anchor to break? 

Again, as he had done several times already, he passed 
his hands over his arms and shoulders and sides, as if peel- 
ing off what adhered to him. 

“ Let me see the book,” he said faintly. “ Lead on.” 


ARMINELL. 


379 


“ I ought to have returned* it to Miss Arminell,” said 
Mrs. Kite ; “ but I didn’t, because my Tamsine saw it, and 
said she’d like to read it. She’s mighty fond of what they 
call a sensational novel.” 

“ It was the book of the Everlasting Gospel,” said 
Saltren with a burst of desperation. “ Nothing will ever 
make me believe otherwise.” 

“ Or that Miss Arminell, who stood in the mouth of the 
Owl’s Nest, was an angel flying?” 

He made no reply, but lowered his head, and pushed 
forwards. 

When they reached the ruined hovel, Mrs. Kite went into 
that part which had not been dismantled, and brought forth 
the crimson-covered book from the oven, where it had 
been hidden, and gave it to her companion. 

“ It is ‘ The Gilded Clique,’ ” was all he said, and fixed 
his eyes on it with terror in them. 

He dared not look Mrs. Kite in the face ; he stood with 
lowered head before her, and his hands shook as he held 
the book, so that he could not study it. 

“ Tell me all that you heard and saw,” he said ; then 
with sudden eagerness, “ It was not on the Sabbath ? ” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Kite, “it was on a Sunday that I saw 
you.” Then she told him all the circumstances as they had 
really happened. 

Wondrous are the phantasmagoric pictures conjured up 
by the sun in the desert ; the traveller looks on and sees 
blue water, flying sails, palm groves, palaces, and all is so 
real that he believes he even hears the muezzin’s call to 
prayer from the minarets, and the lap of the water on the 
sands, and the chant of the mariners in the vessels. Then 
up springs a cold air, and in a moment the picture is dis- 
solved and exposes arid waste strewn with bones and 
utterly herbless. And the words of the woman produced 
some such an effect on the mind of Saltren. -In a minute 


38 ° 


ARMINELL. 


all the imaginations that had spun themselves out of the 
little bare fact, and overspread and disguised it, were 
riven and swept aside. 

Captain Saltren stood turning the book about, and look- 
ing at the likeness of M. Emile Gaboriau on the cover ; it 
bore not the faintest resemblance to the late Lord Larner- 
ton. The book was headed “Gaboriau’s Sensational 
Novels, the Favourite Reading of Prince Bismarck, one 
shilling.” And beneath the medallion was “ The Gilded 
Clique.” Sick at heart, with giddy head, Captain Saltren 
opened the book stained with water, and read, hardly know- 
ing what he did, an advertisement that occupied the fly leaf 
— an advertisement of “ Asiatic Berordnung,” for the pro- 
duction of “ whiskers, moustaches, and hair, and for the 
cure of baldness, and the renovation of ladies’ scanty part- 
ings.” 

Was this the revelation which had been communicated to 
him ? Was it this which had drawn him on into an ecstasy 
of fanatical faith, and led him to the commission of an un- 
provoked crime ? 

Still half-stunned by his fear he read on. “ Eminent 
authorities have expressed their entire approval of the 
valuable yet perfectly harmless nature of our discovery. In 
an age like this, when a youthful appearance is so against a 
young man, those without beard or moustache being desig- 
nated boys, and scanty hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes, so 
unproductive of admiration in the fair sex, the Asiatic 
Berordnung should be universally adopted. Price is. 6d. ; 
full-srzed bottles 3s. 6d. each.” 

Captain Saltren’s face was in colour like that of a corpse ; 
he raised his eyes for a moment to Mrs. Kite, and saw the 
mocking laugh on her lips. He dropped them again, and 
said in a low voice ; “ Leave me alone, I cannot think upon 
what you have said till you are gone.” 

“ I will return to Chillacot and see the ruin,” she said 


ARM1NELL. 


3Sl 

“The ruin?” he repeated, “the ruin?” He had for- 
gotten about his house, he was looking on a greater ruin 
than that, the desolation of a broken down faith, and of 
prostrate self-confidence. 

“ Mind you do not risk going to the Owl’s Nest,” said 
Mrs. Kite ; “ you are not in condition for that, your knees 
scarce support you. Abide here and read your book, and 
see what comfort you can get out of it ; a firm head and a 
steady foot is needed for that path.” 

He made a sign to the woman to go ; he shook as with 
the palsy ; he put his hand to his head. A band as of iron 
was tightening about his temples. He could not endure to 
have Mrs. Kite there any longer. He would go mad un- 
less left alone. 

She hesitated for a moment, repeated her injunctions to 
him to stay where he was till her return, and then left. 

He looked after her till she had disappeared, and for 
some little while after she was gone he looked at the bushes 
that had closed behind her, fearing lest she should return : 
then he sank down on a heap of stones, put the book from 
him with a shudder, and buried his head in his hands. 

The mirage was past, the dry and hideous reality re- 
mained, but Saltren had not as yet quite recovered from the 
impression of reality that mirage had produced on his mind. 
We cannot on waking from certain dreams drive them en- 
tirely from us, so that they in no way affect our conduct and 
influence our opinions. I know that sometimes I wake 
after having dreamed of some amiable and innocent person 
in an odious light, and though I fight against che impression 
all day, I cannot view that person without repugnance. 
Captain Saltren was aware that he had dreamed, that he 
had believed in the reality of the mirage conjured up by his 
fancy, had regarded that crimson-covered book as the 
revelation of the Everlasting Gospel, and though his mind 
assented to the fact that he had been deceived, he was un- 


ARMINELL. 


382 

able to drive away the glamour of the delusion that clung to 
him. 

T, who write this, know full well that I shall find readers, 
and encounter critics who wi’l pronounce the case of Captain 
Saltren impossible ; because in the London clubs and in 
country houses no such delusions are found. What ! are 
we not all engaged in blowing soap-bubbles, in painting 
mirages, in spinning cobwebs ? But then our soap-bubbles, 
our mirages, our cobwebs, in which we, unlike spiders, en- 
tangle ourselves, are not theological, but social and political 
Do we not weave out of our own bowels vast webs, and 
hang them up in the sight of all as substantial realities ? 
And are we not surprised with paralysing amazement when 
we discover that the bubbles we have blown are not new 
created worlds, and our cobwebs are dissolved by a touch ? 
I have seen in Innsbruck pictures painted on cobwebs of 
close texture, with infinite dexterity and patient toil. We 
not only spin our cobwebs, but paint on them, though I 
allow we do not picture on them sacred images. Why, my 
own path is strewn with these gossamer webs of my own 
weaving that never caught any other midge than my own 
insignificant self ; me they entangled, they choked my wind 
pipe, they filled my eyes, they clogged my ears. Look 
back, critical reader, at your own course, and see if it be not 
encumbered with such torn and trampled cobwebs. There 
is a great German book of nine volumes, each of over a 
thousand pages, and it is entitled “ The History of Human 
Folly.” Alas, it is not complete ! It gives but the record 
of the inconceivable follies of a few most salient characters. 
But in our own towns, in our villages, in our immediate 
families, what histories of human folly there are unwritten, 
but well known, I go closer home — in our own lives there 
is a volume for every year recording our delusions and our 
inconsequences. 

In our Latin grammars we learned “ Nemo omnibus 


ARMINELL. 383 

horis sapit,” but that may be better rendered, “ Quis non 
omnibus horis delirat ? ” 

The anthropologist and antiquary delight in exploring the 
kitchen middens of a lost race, heaps of bones, and shells, 
and broken potsherds rejected by a population that lived 
in pre-historic times. But, oh, what kitchen middens are 
about our own selves, at our own doors, of empty shells and 
dismarrowed bones of old convictions, old superstitions, old 
conceits, old ambition^, old hopes ! Where is the meat ? 
Where the nutriment? Nowhere; gone past recall; only 
the dead husks, and shells, and bones, and potsherds re- 
main. Open your desk, pull out the secret drawer, and 
what are revealed ? A dry flower — the refuse scrap of an 
old passion ; a worthless voucher of a bad investment ; a 
MS. poem which was refused by every magazine ; a mother’s 
Bible, monum-nt of a dead belief. Go, turn over your own 
kitchen middens, and then come and argue with me that 
such a delusion as that of Captain Saltren is impossible. I 
tell you it is paralleled every year. 

And now, sitting on the heap of stones, full of doubt, and 
yet not altogether a prey to despair, Captain Saltren took 
the red book again, and began to read it, first at the begin- 
ning, then turning to the middle, then looking to the end. 
Then he put it from him once more, and, with the cold 
sweat streaming over his face, he walked to the edge of the 
quarry, and there knelt down to pray. Had he been de- 
ceived ? Was he not now subjected to a fiery trial of his 
fahh — a last assault of the Evil One? This was indeed a 
possibility, and it was a possibility to which he clung des- 
perately. 

A little while ago we saw Giles Saltren humiliated and 
crushed, passing through the flame of disappointment and 
disenchantment, the purgatorial flame that in this life tries 
every man. In that fire the young man’s self-esteem 
and self-reliance had shrivelled up and been reduced 


3 8 4 


ARMINELL. 


to ash. And now his reputed father entered the same 
furnace. 

He prayed and wrestled in spirit, wringing his hands, and 
with sweat and tears commingled streaming down his cheeks. 
He prayed that he might be given a token. He could not, 
he would not, accept the humiliation. He fought against 
it with all the powers of his soul and mind. 

Then he stood up. He was resolved what to do. He 
wculd walk along the ledge of rock to the Owl’s Nest, hold- 
ing the red book in his hand instead of clinging to the ivy 
bands. If that book stayed him up and sustained him in 
equilibrium till he reached the Cave, then he would still be- 
lieve in his mission, and the revelations that attended it. 
But if he had erred, why then 

Holding the book he began the perilous walk. He took 
three steps forward, and then the judgment was pronounced. 


CHAPTER XLi. 


SOCIAL SUICIDE. 

When jCriles Saltren had left town to return to Orleigh his 
uncle remained with Arminell. The girl asked Mr. Welsh 
to leave her for half an hour to collect her thoughts and 
resolve on what she would do ; and he went off to the 
British Museum to look at the marbles till he considered 
she had been allowed sufficient time to decide her course, 
and then he returned to the inn. She was ready for him, 
composed, seated on the sofa, pale, and dark under the 
eyes. 

“ Well, Miss Inglett,” said Welsh, “ Pve been studying 
the busts of the Roman Emperors and 'heir wives, and 
imagining them dressed in our nineteenth-century costume ; 
and, upon my word, I believe they would pass for ordinary 
English men and women. I believe dress has much to do 
with the determination of character. Conceive of Domi- 
tian in a light, modern summer suit — in that he could not 
be Bloodthirsty and a tyrant. Imagine me in a toga, and you 
may imagine me committing any monstrosity. Dress does 
it. How about your affairs? Are you going to Aunt 
Hermione ? ” 

“ To Lady Hermione Woodhead ? ” corrected Arminell, 
with a touch of haughtiness. “ No. 5 ’ 

“ Then what will you do ? I’ll take the liberty of a 

2 b 



ARMINELL. 


386 

chair.” He seated himself. “ I can’t get their busts out 
of my head — however, go on.” 

“ Mr. Welsh, I wish to state to you exactly what I have 
done, and let you see how I am circumstanced. I have 
formed my own opinion as to what I must do, and I shall 
be glad afterwards to hear what you think of my determina- 
tion. You have shown me kindness in coming here, and 
offering your help, and I am not so ungracious as to re 
fuse to accept, to some extent, the help so readily offered.” 

“ I shall be proud, young lady.” 

“ Let me then proceed to tell you how stands the case, 
and ‘men you will comprehend why I have taken my resolu- 
tion. I ran away from home with your nephew, moved by a 
vague romantic dream, which, when I try to recall, partly 
escapes me, and appears to me now altogether absurd.” 

“ You were not dressed for the part,” threw in Welsh. 
“ You could no more be the heroine in modern vest and 
the now fashionable hat, than I could commit the crimes of 
Caesar in this suit.” 

“ In the first place,” pursued Arminell, disregarding the 
interruption, “ I was filled with the spirit of unrest and dis- 
content, which made me undervalue everything I had, and 
crave for and over-estimate everything I had not. With 
my mind ill at ease, I was ready to catch at whatever chance 
offered of escape from the vulgar round of daily life, and 
plunge into a new, heroic, and exciting career. The chance 
came. Your nephew believed that he was my half-brother.” 

“ Young Jack-an-apes ! ” intercalated Welsh. 

“ That he was my dear father’s son by a former fictitious 
marriage with your sister, Mrs. Saltren, I believed, as firmly 
as your nephew believed it ; and I was extremely indignant 
with my poor father for what I thought was his dishonour- 
able conduct in the matter, and for the hypocrisy of his 
after life. I thought that, if I ran away with your nephew, 
I would force him — I mean my lord — to acknowledge the 


ARMINELL. 


387 

tie, and so do an act of tardy justice to his son. Then, in 
the next place, I was filled with exalted ideas of what we 
ought to do in this world, that we were to be social knights 
errant, rambling about at our own free will, redressing 
wrongs, and I despised the sober virtues of my father, and 
the ordinary social duties, with the execution of which my 
step-mother filled up her life. I thought that a brilliant 
career was open to your nephew, and that I might take a 
share in it, that we would make ourselves names, and effect 
great things for the social regeneration of the age. It was 
all nonsense and moonshine. I see that clearly enough 
now. My wonder is that I did not see it before. But the 
step has been taken and cannot be recalled. I have broken 
with my family and with my class, I cannot ask to have 
links rewelded which I wilfully snapped, to be reinstalled in 
a place I deliberately vacated. Nemesis has overtaken me, 
and even the gods bow to Nemesis.” 

“ You are exaggerating,” interrupted Welsh ; “you have, 
I admit, acted like a donkey — excuse the expression, no 
other is as forcible and as true — but I find no such irretriev- 
able mischief done as you suppose. Fortunately the mis- 
take has been corrected at once. If you will go home, or 
to Lady Woodhead — ” 

“ Lady Hermione Woodhead,” corrected Arminell. 

“ Or to Lady Hermione Woodhead — all will be well. 
What might have been a catastrophe is averted.” 

“ No,” answered Arminell, “all will not be well. Excuse 
me if I flatly contradict you. There is something else you 
have not reckoned on, but which I must take into my cal- 
culations. I shall never forget what I have done, never 
forgive myself for having embittered the last moments of 
my dear father’s life, never for having thought unworthily of 
him, and let him see that he had lost my esteem. If I were 
to return home, now or later from my aunt’s house, I could 
not shake off the sense of self-reproach, of self-loathing 


ARMINELL. 


388 

which I now feel. There is one way, and one way only, in 
which I can recover my self-respect and peace of mind. ,, 

“ And that is — ? ” 

“ By not going home.” 

“Well — go to your aunt’s.” 

“ I should be there for a month, and after that must 
return to Orleigh. No — that is not possible. Do you not 
see that several reasons conspire against my taking that 
course ? ” 

“ Pray let me know them.” 

“ In the first place, it is certain to have leaked out that I 
ran away from home. My conduct will be talked about 
and commented on in Orleigh, in the county. It will 
become part of the scandal published in the society papers, 
and be read and laughed over by the clerks and shop-girls 
who take in these papers, whose diet it is. Everywhere, in 
all classes, the story will be told how the Plonourable 
Arminell Tnglett, only daughter of Giles, tenth Baron 
Lamerton of Orleigh, and his first wife, the Lady Lucy 
Hele, daughter of the Earl of Anstey, had eloped with the 
son of a mining captain, the tutor to her half-brother, and 
how that they were discovered together in a little inn in 
Bloomsbury.” 

“ No,” said Welsh, impatiently. “ If you will act as 
Jingles has suggested, this will never be known. He is 
back at Orleigh, or will be there this afternoon, and you will 
be at Portland Place, where your maid will find you. What 
more natural than that you should return to-morrow home, 
on account of your father’s death? As for the society 
papers — if they get an inkling of the real facts — I am 
connected with the press. I can snuff the light out. There 
are ways and means. Leave that to me.” 

“ But, Mr. Welsh, suppose that suspicion has been roused 
at Orleigh — Mrs. Cribbage has to be considered. That 
woman will not leave a stone unturned till she has routed 


ARMINELL. 


3 8 9 


out everything. I used to say that was why the finger ends 
were always out of her gloves. I would have to equivocate, 
and perhaps to lie, when asked point-blank questions which 
if answered would betray the truth. I would be putting my 
dear step-mother to the same inconvenience and humili- 
ation.” 

“ Trust her wit and knowledge of the world to evade Mrs. 
Cribbage.” 

“ But I cannot. I have not the wit.” 

Mr. Welsh was vexed, he stamped impatiently. 

“ I can’t follow you in this,” he said. 

“ Well, Mr. Welsh, then p-rhaps you may in what I give 
you as my next reason. I feel bound morally to take the 
consequences of my act. When a wretched girl flings her- 
self over London B.idge, perhaps she feels a spasm of regret 
for the life she is throwing away, as the water closes over 
her, but she drowns, all the same.” 

“ Not at all, when there are boats put forth to the rescue, 
and hands extended to haul her in.” 

“To rescue her for what? — To be brought before a 
magistrate, and to have her miserable story published in the 
daily penny papers. Why, Mr. Welsh, her friends regret 
that her body was not rolled down into the deep sea, or 
smothered under a bed of Thames mud ; that were better 
than the publication of her infamy.” 

“ What will you have ? ” 

“ I have made the plunge ; I must go down.” 

‘‘Not if I can pull you out.” 

“ You cannot pull me out. I made my leap out of my 
social order. What I have done has been to commit social 
suicide. There is no recovery for me save at a cost which 
I refuse to pay. I h ive heard that those who have been 
half drowned suffer infinite agonies on the return of vitali y 
I shrink from these pains. I know what it would be were I 
fished up and thrown on my own shore again. I would 


390 


ARMINELL. 


tingle and smart in every fibre of my consciousness, and cry 
out to be cast in again. No, Mr. Welsh, through youthful 
impetuosity and wrongheadedness 1 have jumped out of my 
social world, and I must abide by the consequences. As 
the Honourable Arminell Inglett I have ceased to exist. I 
die out of the peerage, die out of my order, die out of the 
recognition, though not the memory, of my relatives. But 
I live on as plain Miss Inglett, one of the countless members 
of the great Middle Class.” 

James Welsh looked at the girl with puzzlement in his 
face. Spots of flame had come into her pale cheeks, and 
to the temples, as she spoke, and she moved her slender 
fingers on her lap in her eagerness to make herself explicit 
and her difficulties intelligible. 

“ I don’t understand you, Miss Inglett. That is, I do 
not see what is your intention.” 

“ I mean that I have committed social suicide, and I do 
not wish to be saved either for my friends’ sake or for my 
own. I ask you kindly to get my death inserted in the 
Times and the other daily papers.” 

“ Your actual death ? ” 

“A statement that on such a day died the Honourable 
Arminell Inglett, only daughter of the late Lord Lamerton. 
That will suffice ; it proclaims to society that I have ceased 
to belong to it. Of course my dear step-mother and my 
aunt and the family solicitors shall know the truth. I have 
money that comes to me from my mother. A statement of 
my death in the Times will not constitute legal death, but 
it will suffice to establish my social death.” 

“You are taking an extraordinary and unwarrantable 
course.” 

“ Extraordinary it may be, but not unwarranted. I have 
the justification within, in my conscience. When one has 
done that which is wrong, one is called to suffer for it, 
and the conscience is never cleansed and restored without 


ARMINELL. 


39 1 


expiating pains. If I were to return to Orleigh, I would 
die morally, of that I am sure, because it would be a 
shirking of the consequences which my foolish act has 
brought down on me.” 

“ There may be something in that,” said Welsh. 

“ I will write to Lady Lamerton and tell her everything 
and assure her that my decision is irrevocable. I have 
caused her so much pain, I have behaved so badly to my 
father, I have been so ungrateful for all the happy days and 
pleasant comforts of dear, dear Orleigh” — her eyes filled 
with tears, and she was unable to finish her sentence. 

Mr. Welsh said nothing. 

“ No,” she said, after a pause — “ No, Mr. Welsh, I can- 
not in conscience go home, there to dissemble and lie to 
Mrs. Cribbage and to neighbours ; and never to be able to 
shake off the sense of self-reproach for not having frankly 
accepted the results of my own misconduct. Do you know, 
Mr. Welsh, I was angry with my father because I thought 
he was evading his retribution ? ” 

Mr. Welsh, usually a talkative man, felt no inclination 
now to say a word. 

“Mr. Welsh,” said Arminell, “I ask you to go to Port- 
land Place, call on Lady Hermione Woodhead, she is a 
practical woman of the world ; lay the entire case before 
her, and see if she does not say, ‘ Throw her in again, for 
Heaven’s sake, so as to keep the story out of the papers.’ ” 

“ And if her ladyship does not say so?” 

“ She will say it.” 

“ If she does not, but asks me to bring you to her, will 
you go to Portland Place ? ” 

“ No ; my resolution is taken.” 

Welsh stood up and paced the room. 

“ What the deuce will you do?” he asked. “You are 
quite a girl, and a pretty girl, and confoundedly inexperi- 
enced. You cannot, you must not live alone. My 


392 


ARMINELL. 


Tryphoena is a good soul ; it is true that we are without a 
cook, but if you do not object to rissoles I shall be happy 
to offer you such hospitality as my house affords. Shep- 
herd’s Bush is not the most aristocratic quarter of the town, 
but Poplar is worse ; it is not near the theatres and the 
parks, but you’re welcome to it. Your idea is startling. 
I’ll go into that cul-de-sac , Queen’s Square, w’here runs no 
cab, no ’bus does rumble, and consider it there.” 

“ Will you see my aunt, Lady Hermione? It will save 
me writing, and you can explain the circumstances by word 
better than I can tell them with a pen.” 

“ Bless me ! I have a mind to do so.” He stopped, 
went to the window, came back, and said abruptly, “ Yes, I 
will. God bless me ! To think that I — I of all men, a 
raging Democrat, should be hansoming to and fro between 
my Ladies and Honourables.” 

“ You can do what will give you pleasure,” said the girl 
with a faint smile — “with a stroke of the pen convert the 
Honourable Arminell into plain Miss Inglett.” 

He did not laugh at the sally. He came in front of her, 
and stood contemplating her, with his hands behind his 
back. 

“God bless me!” he said, “one can be heroic after all 
in modern costume. I didn’t think it. Well, I will go, but 
write me a line to ensure her receiving me in the morning.” 

Arminell did as required. 

When she had finished the note and was folding it, she 
looked up at Welsh, and asked, “ Have you read the 
Hecuba ? ” 

“'The Hecuba? Classic? Not even in Bohn’s trans- 
lation.” 

“ Then the saying of Hecuba to Polyxenes will not occur 
to you : ‘ I am dead before my death, through my ills.’ ” 

“ I will go,” he said, and held out his hand. “ Give me 
a shake — it will do me good.” 


ARMINELL, 


393 


“ But, Mr. Welsh, you will return to me? ” 

“ Yes.” His mouth and eyes were twitching. 

“ Deuce take it ! an aristocrat can do an heroic thing 
even with a vest and toupee.” 

Two hours later the journalist returned. 

“ Confound these aristocrats,” he said, as he entered, hot 
and puffing. “They live in daily, hourly terror of public 
opinion. I wouldn’t be one of them, existing in such a 
state of quivering terror, not for anything you could offer 
me. They are like a man I knew who spent all his energies 
in fighting against draughts. He put sandbags to the 
bottom of his doors, stuffed cotton-wool into the crevices of 
his windows; papered over the joints of his flooring, corked 
up the keyholes, and yet was always catching catarrh from 
draughts that came from — no one knows where. What 
they fear is breath — the breath of public opinion.” 

“ What did my aunt say ? ” asked Arminell. 

“Say? In the most elegant and roundabout way what 
may be summarized in four words — ‘Chuck her in again.’ ” 

“ I said as much.” 

“ Come, Miss Inglett. I have telegraphed to Tryphcena 
to do two extra rissoles. We shall pass the stores, and I’ll 
buy a tin of prawns and a bottle of Noyeau jelly. Pack up 
your traps. The cab is at the door. Sorry to-day is Mon- 
day, or you should have had something better than rissoles.” 


CHAPTER XLTI. 


shepherd’s bush. 

‘ Here we are,” said Mr. Welsh, “ The Avenue— the most 
stylish part of Shepherd’s Bush, as it is of New York. You 
sit still in the fly whilst I go in and make an explanation to 
her ladyship. I’ll take that bottle of Noyeau you have 
been nursing; I have the canister of prawns in my coat- 
pocket ; I am sorry before purchasing it that I forgot to ask 
you if you preferred Lock Awe salmon. What is your 
favourite tipple? You will hear from my wife that we have 
no cook. The last we got became inebriated, and we had 
to dismiss her. We have been without one for a fortnight. 
Tryphoena— that is, her ladyship — upon my word I have 
been so mixed up with aristocrats of late, that I find myself 
giving a title to every one I meet. What was I saying ! 
Oh ! that her ladyship has all the cooking to do now ? 
You sit quiet. No fumbling after your purse ; I pay the 
cabby because I engaged him. We of the Upper Ten, 
under present depression, do not keep our own carriages 
and livery servants — we hire as we want.” 

Under all Welsh’s rollicking humour lay real kindness of 
heart. Arminell felt it, and drew towards this man, so 
unlike any other man with whom she was acquainted, or 
whom she had met. She knew that he was perfectly reli- 
fle, that he would do everything in his power to serve her, 


ARMINELL. 


395 


and that a vast store of tenderness and consideration lay 
veiled under an affectation of boisterousness and burles- 
que. 

How is it that when we do a kindness we endeavour to 
minimise it? We disguise the fact that what we do costs 
us something, that it gives us trouble, that it draws down 
on us irksome responsibilities ? It is not that we are 
ashamed of ourselves for doing kindnesses, that we think it 
unmanly to be unselfish, but rather that we fear to embarrass 
the person who receives favours at our hands. 

Mr. Welsh had really sacrificed much that day for 
Arminell. He was to have met an editor and arranged 
with him for articles for his paper. He had not kept his 
appointment ; that might possibly be resented, and lead to 
pecuniary loss, to some one else being engaged in his room. 
Editors are unforgiving. “Yes,” said Mr. Welsh that same 
afternoon, when he found that what he dreaded had oc- 
curred, “a Domitian is possible still in our costume, but 
the tyrants confine their ferocity to aspirants after literary 
work. They cut off their heads, they put out their eyes, 
and they disjoint their noses, wholesale.” 

Presently Welsh put his head to the cab door and said 
cheerfully, “ All right, I’ve broken it to her ladyship. She 
don’t know all. You are a distant and disowned relative of 
the noble house of Lamerton. That is what I have told 
her ; and I am your guardian for the time. I have explained. 
Come in. The maid-of-all-work don’t clean herself till the 
afternoon, and is now in hiding behind the hall door. She 
spends the morning in accumulating the dirt of the house 
on her person, when no one is expected to call, and she 
scrubs it off after lunch.” He opened the cab door, and 
conducted her into the house. “ I will lug the slavey out 
from behind the door,” he said, “ if you will step into the 
dining room ; and then she and I will get the luggage from 
the cab. Your room is not yet ready. Go in there.” He 


39 ^ 


ARMINELL. 


opened the door on his left, and ushered Arminell into the 
little apartment. 

“ Excuse me if I leave you,” he said, “ and excuse Mrs. 
Welsh for a bit. She is rummaging somewhere. We have, 

as she will tell you presently, no cook. The last ” he 

made pantomimic signs of putting a bottle to his lips. 
Then he went out, and for a while there reached Arminell 
from the narrow front passage, somewhat grandly designated 
the hall, sounds of the moving of her luggage. 

A moment later, and a whispered conversation from out- 
side the door reached her ears. 

“ It’s no use — there are only scraps. How can you sug- 
gest rissoles? There is no time for the preparation of 
delicacies. If we are to have them, it must be for dinner. 
I did not expect you at noon, much less that you would be 
bringing a visitor. Your telegram arrived one minute be- 
fore yourself.” 

“ Not so loud,” whispered James Welsh, “ or she will 
hear. You must provide enough to eat, of course. Send 
out for steak.” 

“Nonsense, James; it is lunch time already. She must 
manage with scraps, and them cold scraps are wholesome. 
What doesn’t poison fattens.” 

“ You couldn’t, I suppose, have the scraps warmed, or ” 
— somewhat louder, with a flash of inspiration — •“ or con- 
verted into a haricot ? ” 

“ How can you talk like this, James ? Go on, suggest 
that they shall be made into a mayonnaise next. To have 
hot meat means a fire, and there is none to speak of in the 
kitchen.” 

“ Only dead scraps ! My dear Tryphoena, she belongs to 
a titled family, a long way off and disowned, you under- 
stand, but still — there is a title in the family and — scraps ! ” 

“ What else will you have, James ? Had you been home 
yesterday for dinner, there would have been joint, roast ; 


ARMINELL. 


397 

but as you were not, I ate cold meat. Now there are only 
scraps.” 

“ Perhaps if you were to turn out the Noyeau jelly in a 
shape, Tryphcena, it would give the lunch a more distin* 
guished look.” 

“ Scraps of cold boiled mutton and Noyeau jelly ! No, 
that won’t do. The jelly must be warmed and melted into 
the shape, and take three hours to cool.” 

“ I wish I had taken her to the Holborn Restaurant,” 
groaned Welsh; “what difficulties encumber domestic 
arrangements ! ” 

" Without a cook — yes,” added his wife. 

“ Do go in and welcome her,” urged Mr. Welsh. 

“ I cannot in this condition. You know I have no cook, 
and must attend to everything. The girl has been impu- 
dent this morning, and has given me notice.” 

Whilst this discussion was being carried on, Arminell 
tried not to listen, but the whispers were pitched so high, 
a-nd were so articulate, that scarce a word escaped her. 

Then Mr. Welsh whispered, “ Do lower your voice, 
Tryphoena,” and the pair drifted down the passage to the 
head of the kitchen steps, and what was further discussed 
there was inaudible. 

Arminell looked round the room. Its most prominent 
feature was the gas-lamp with double burner and globes — 
the latter a little smoked, suspended from the ceiling by a 
telescopic tube that allowed just sufficient gas to escape at 
the joints to advertise itself as gas, not paraffin or electric 
fluid. This room was the one in which, apparently, Mrs. 
Welsh sat when she had a cook, and was not engrossed in 
domestic affairs. Her work-box, knitting, a railway novel, 
bills paid and unpaid, and one of Mr. Welsh’s stockings 
with a hole in the heel, showed that she occupied this apart- 
ment occasionally. 

The door opened, and Mrs. Welsh entered, followed by 


ARMINELL. 


39 8 

her husband. She was a stout lady with a flat face, and a 
pair of large dark eyes, her only beauty, lfer hair was not 
tidy, nor were all the buttons and hooks in place and per- 
* forming their proper functions about her body. 

“ How do you do ? ” said she, extending her hand ; “ I’m 
sorry to say I have no cook ; nothing is more difficult than 
to find cooks with characters now-a-days ; ladies will give 
such false characters. What I say is, tell the truth, what- 
ever comes of it. My last cook had a glowing character 
from the lady with whom she lived in Belgrave Square. I 
assure you she was in a superior house, quite aristocratic — 
carriage people ; but I could not keep her. I did not my- 
self find out that she drank. I did not suspect it. I knew 
she was flighty — but at last she went up a ladder, sixty feet 
high, and could hardly be got down again. It was in an 
adjoining builder’s yard. The ladder leaned against no- 
thing, it pointed to the sky, and she went up it, and though 
a stout and elderly woman, looked no bigger than a fly when 
she had reached the top. Won’t you sit down ? or stay — 
let me take you up to the parlour. We will have the table 
laid directly for lunch. Mr. Welsh does not generally come 
home at this time of day, so I was unprepared, and I have 
no cook. The ladder began to sway with her, for she 
became nervous at the top, and afraid to come down ; quite 
a crowd collected. Do take off your things. Your room 
will be ready presently. In the meantime you can lay your 
bonnet in the drawing-room. I am short of hands now. 
The steps are rather narrow and steep, but I will lead the 
way. I’ll see to having water and soap and a towel taken 
to the best bed-room presently, but my servant is now 
making her. elf neat. None of the police liked to go up 
the ladder after my cook. The united weights at the top, 
sixty feet, would have made it sway like a bulrush, and 
perhaps break. This is the drawing-room. Do make your- 
self comfortable in it and excuse me. My father and 


ARMINELL. 


399 


mother were carriage pepple. There he is in his uniform, 
between the windows, taken when he was courting my 
mother. You will excuse me, or the girl will spread a dirty 
instead of a clean tablecloth for lunch. Dear me, the blinds 
have not been drawn up ! ” 

Then Mrs. Welsh departed. All men and women trail 
shadows behind them when the sun shines in their faces, 
but some women, in all conditions of the heavens, drag 
behind them braid. It would seem as if they had their 
skirts bound to come undone. As in the classic world 
certain females were described as being with relaxed zones, 
so are there females in the modern world in a perpetual 
condition of relaxed bindings. If Mrs. Welsh had lived in 
a palaeozoic period, when the beasts that inhabited the globe 
impressed their footprints on the pliant ooze, what perplexity 
her traces would now produce among the palaeontologists, 
and what triumph in the minds of the anthropologists, who 
would conclude that these were the footprints of the homo 
caudatus , the missing link between the ape and man, and 
point in evidence to the furrow accompanying the impres- 
sions of the feet ; and Mrs. Welsh always did wear a tail, 
but the tail was of black binding, sometimes looped, some- 
times dragging in ends,. As Arminell followed Mrs. Welsh 
up the stairs, she had to keep well in the rear to avoid 
treading on th : s tail. 

On reaching the drawing-room, Arminell laid her bonnet 
and cloak on the sofa, and looked round the room as she 
had looked about that below. The latter had been dreary 
to the eyes, the former had the superadded dreariness of 
pretence. 

Houses that are uninhabited are haunted by ghosts, and 
unoccupied rooms by smells. The carpet, the curtains, the 
wall-paper, the chintz covers, the cold fire-place, send f< rth 
odours urgent to attract attention, as soon as the doOr 
opens. They are so seldom seen that they will be smelt. 


400 


ARM IN ELL. 


The drawing-room in the Avenue was small, with two 
narrow windows to it ; the walls were papered with an 
aesthetic dado of bulrushes and water weeds, on a pea-green 
base ; above that ran a pattern picked out with gold, a self- 
assertive paper. Above the marble mantelshelf was a 
chimney-piece of looking-glasses and shelves, on which 
stood several pieces of cheap modem china, mostly 
Japanese, such as are seen outside Glaves in Oxford Street, 
in baskets, labelled, “ Any of this lot for 2d.” 

Against the wall opposite the windows were two blue 
Delft plates, hung by wires. Between the windows was the 
miniature of the father of Mrs. Welsh, once a carriage-man, 
but not looking it, wearing the uniform of a marine officer, 
and the languishment of a lover. He was represented with 
a waxy face, a curl on his brow, and either water or wadding 
on his chest. 

Upon the table were books radiating from a central opal 
specimen glass that contained three or four dry everlastings, 
smelling like corduroys; and the books in very bright cloth 
had their leaves glued together with the gilding. 

Unhappy, occupied with her own trouble though Arminell 
was, yet she noted these things because they were so 
different from that to which she was accustomed. Perhaps 
the rawness of the decoration, the strain after impossible 
effect, struck Arminell more than the lack of taste. She 
had been accustomed to furniture and domestic decoration 
pitched in a key below that of the occupants, but here 
everything was screwed up above that of such as were sup- 
posed to use the room. Elsewhere she had seen chairs and 
sofas to be sat on, carpets to be walked on, books to be 
read, wall papers to be covered with paintings. Here even 
the sun was not allowed to touch the carpet, and the chairs 
were to be made use of gingerly, and the fire-irons not to be 
employed at all, and the grate most rarely. After Arminell 
had spent half-an-hour in this parlour, the whole house 


ARMINELL. 


401 


reverberated with the boom of a gong ; and next moment 
Mrs. Welsh came in to say that lunch was ready. She had 
in the meantime dressed herself to do the honours of the 
meal ; had changed her gown, then brushed her hair, and 
put on rings. Nevertheless she lacked finish. The brooch 
was not fastened, and threatened to fall, and her dress im- 
prover had not been accurately and symmetrically fitted to 
her person. 

“Welsh,” she said, “ has departed. He is very sorry, but 
business calls must be attended to. Never mind, I’ll do 
what I can to entertain you. I will tell you the end of the 
story of my cook up a ladder. Ah ! ” she exclaimed on 
reaching the foot of the stairs — “is that your umbrella 
fallen on the floor? You stuck it up against the wall, no 
doubt. The gong has done it, shaken it down with the 
vibration.” 

The lunch was plain, but the good lady had made an 
effort to give it the semblance of elegance. She had sent 
out for parsley to garnish the cold mutton, and for a dish of 
lettuce and another of watercress, and had set a just un- 
corked bottle of Castle A Claret on the table beside 
Arminell’s plate. 

“ You’ll excuse if we help ourselves and dispense with 
the girl,” said Mrs. Welsh. “ Have you had much to do 
wuth servants ? I have applied to the registry offices for a 
cook and can’t get one ; they object to Shepherd’s Bush, or 
else want to redeem their characters at my expense. I 
have applied at the hospital for a convalescent, but if I get 
one, she will not be up to much work, and besides will 
have been so pampered in hospital, that she will not 
accommodate herself to our fare, and will leave as soon as 
she is well. If we were carriage people, it would be 
different. Servants won’t remain in a situation where a 
carriage and pair are not kept. They think it immoral. 
Were your parents carriage people ? And did your mother 


402 


ARM1NELL. 


have much trouble with her servants ? And, if I may ask, 
where did she go for her cooks?” 

“ My mother died shortly after my birth, and my father 
recently.” Arminell spoke with a choke in her voice. “ I 
have not had time to get mourning. I must do some 
shopping this afternoon.” 

“ I can show you where you can get things very 
cheap. You take a ’bus along Goldhawk Road, it costs but 
twopence if you walk as far as Shepherd’s Bush Station, 
otherwise it comes to threepence. I suppose you have 
kept home for your father ? Did you meet with imperti' 
nence from the servants? But I dare say you kept your 
carriage. If you don’t do that they regard you as their 
equals. They divide mankind into castes — the lowest keep 
no conveyances, the middle have one-horse traps, and the 
superior and highest of all keep a pair and close carriage. 
My parents were carriage people — indeed my father was an 
officer in her Majesty’s service. My husband will some day, 
I trust, have his equipage. His sister is very intimate with 
people of distinction. I don’t mean carriage people only, 
but titled persons, the highest nobility. She was a bosom 
friend of the dowager Lady Lamerton, she told me so herself. 
I almost expect the Lamerton family to call on me. Should 
they do so whilst you are here, I shall be happy to introduce 
you. By the way — your name is Inglett, you must be a 
distant connexion of the family. James said you were 
related to a noble family, but that they did not receive you. 
In the event of a call, perhaps you would prefer to remain 
in the dining-room. My husband’s nephew is called after 
his lordship, Giles Inglett, because my lord stood godfather 
to him at the font. I assure you the intimacy betwc n 
Marianne and the family is most cordial. I wonder what 
Mrs. Tomkins over the way will say when their carriage 
stops at my gate ! What a pity it is that the British nobility 
should be the hot-bed of vice.” 


ARMINELL. 


403 


“ Is it ? ” asked Arminell listlessly. 

“ Indeed it is. I know a great deal about the aristocracy. 
My sister-in-law moves in the highest circles. I read all the 
divorce cases in high life, and I have an intimate friend who 
is much in great houses — in fact, she nurses there. Persons 
of good family when reduced in circumstances become trained 
nurses. This lady has nursed Sir Lionel Trumpington, and 
I could tell you a thing or two about his family she has con- 
fided to me — but you are not married. She had the charge 
of chief Justice Bacon’s daughter, who was a dipsomaniac, 
and so had the entree into the best families, and has told 
me the most extraordinary and shocking stories about them.” 

After lunch, Mrs. Welsh said, “ There now, go up to the 
parlour, and sit there an hour, till I am ready. I must see 
that the girl does your room, after which I will put on my 
walking clothes. I will take you where you can get crape, 
just a little crumpled and off colour, at half price. We will 
walk to the railway arch and so save a penny.” 

Arminell sat by herself in the drawing-room ; the sun was 
streaming in, but Mrs. Welsh allowed the blinds to remain 
undrawn. She stood hesitatingly with hand raised to draw 
them, but went away, leaving them rolled up, a concession 
to the presence of a visitor. 

Arminell's mind turned from her own troubles to the con- 
sideration of the life Mrs. Welsh and those of her social grade 
led. How utterly uninteresting, commonplace, aimless it 
seemed ; how made up of small pretences, absurd vanities, 
petty weaknesses, and considerable follies ! A few days ago, 
such a revelation of sordid middle-class triviality would have 
amused her. Now it did not. She saw something beside 
all the littleness and affectation, something which dignified it. 

Everywhere in life is to be observed a straining after what 
is above ; and the wretched drunken cook scrambling up a 
ladder that led to nothing, blindly exemplified the universal 
tendency. As among the plants in a garden, and the trees 


404 


ARM I NELL. 


of a plantation, there is manifest an upward struggle, so is 
it in the gardens and plantations of humanity. The servant, 
as Mrs. Welsh had said, is not content to serve where no 
servant is kept, and changes to a situation where there is a 
pony-chaise ; then feels a yearning in her that fills her with 
unrest till she has got into a sphere where there is a one-horse 
brougham, and deserts that again for the house that main- 
tains a landau and pair. In the lower class an effort is made 
to emulate the citizens of the middle class, in dress and 
arrangement of hair, and mode of speech ; and in the 
middle class is apparent protracted effort to reach the 
higher ; or if it cannot be reached, to hang on to it by 
a miniature and a sister-in-law, and a trained nurse friend. 
Is this ridiculous? Of course it is ridiculous to see cooks 
scrambling up ladders that reach nowhere, but it is infinitely 
better that they should do this than throw themselves into 
the gutter. And so thought Arminell now. Mrs. Welsh 
may have been absurd, but behind all her nonsense beat a 
true and generous heart, full of aspiration after something 
better, and a cheerful spirit of hospitality and self-sacrifice. 
No. Arminell saw the struggle in the woman’s face about 
the blinds, and respected her. But when she was gone, the 
girl stood up, went to the windows and drew down the 
b'inds, to save from fading Mrs. Welsh’s new gaudy carpet. 


CHAPTER XLIII. 


DOWSING. 

A few days later, towards evening, Mr. James Welsh arrived, 
after having been absent from home. He had not told his 
wife or Arminell the cause of his departure, nor whither he 
was going. When he returned, he informed Arminell that 
he had been away on business, and that he wanted a word 
with her in the parlour. 

“ There is no gas in the drawing-room. Will you have a 
lamp ? ” asked Mrs. Welsh. 

“ Thank you. It will be unnecessary. At this time of 
the year it is not dark, and the dusk is agreeable for a tete-a- 
tete. My business does not need reference to papers.” 

“ Then I will go down and see about locking up the re- 
mains ot the plum-pudding. The girl has had her share set 
apart on a plate, and I object to her consuming everything 
that goes out from dinner. There is enough of the pudding 
left to serve up fried to-morrow.” 

Arminell and Mi. Welsh mounted the steep stairs to the 
sitting-room. The parlour was close and stuffy ; Welsh went 
to the window and opened it a little way. 

“ Do sit down, Miss Inglett,” he said, “ there, on the sofa, 
with your back to the window, if you are not afraid of a 
breath of air. This twilight is restful to the eyes and grate- 
ful to the overwrought brain. There is no need for candles.” 
He seated himself away from her, looking in another 


ARMINELL. 


406 

direction, and said, “ I suppose you can guess where I have 
been ? ” 

“ Indeed I cannot, Mr. Welsh.” 

“ I have been at Orleigh. I thought I would like to be 
present at your father’s funeral. Besides, I belong to the 
press, and my duties took me there. Also, my sister is left 
a widow. You may not, perhaps, have heard of the death 
of Captain Saltren ? ” 

“ Captain Saltren dead ! ” 

“ Yes, drowned in the old quarry pit.” 

“ I remember having once seen him there. He was a 
strange man. He went there to say his prayers, and he 
prayed on a kind of raft of his own construction. I suppose 
it gave way under him, or he overbalanced himself.” 

“ Possibly. How he fell is not known. He was very 
strange in his manner of late, so that the general opinion is 
that he. was off his head. He had visions, or fancied that 
he had.” 

Arminell said no more on this matter. She was desirous 
of hearing about her father’s funeral. 

“ I was present when Lord Lamerton was taken to his last 
rest,” said Welsh ; “ you cannot have any conception what an 
amount of feeling was elicited by his death. By me it was 
unexpected. I could not have supposed that the people, as 
distinguished from the aristocracy, would have been other 
than coldly respectful, but his lordship must have been 
greatly beloved.” Welsh paused and rubbed his chin. 
“ Yes, much loved. Of course, I had only seen one side of 
him, and that was the side I cared to see, being a profes- 
sional man, and professionally engaged to see only one side. 
That is in the way of business, and just as a timber merchant 
measures a tree, and estimates it by the amount of plank it 
will make, regardless of its effect in the landscape, so it is 
with me. I look on a man, especially a nobleman, from a 
commercial point of view, and ask how many feet of type I 


ARM IN ELL. 


407 

can get out of him. I don’t consider him for any other 
qualities he may have than those which serve my object, 
hut I will admit that there must ha e been a large amount 
of kindness and sterling worth in his lordship, or there would 
not- have been such a demonstration at his iuneral, and that 
not by a party, but general — not cooked, but spontaneous. 
One expected to see the quality at the funeral, but wha 
surprised me was the real sorrow expressed by the people. 
Why, bless you ! what do you think ? Because Captain 
Saltren had denounced his lordship, and prophesied his 
death, the mob rolled stones down the cliff on Chillacot and 
ruined the house and spoiled the garden.” 

Pope Leo X. was inaccessible except to buffoons, and 
when a priest desired an interview with his Holiness, but 
was unable to obtain one in the ordinary manner, he dressed 
himself in motley, and as a clown obtained immediate ad- 
mission. 

There are some people who suppose that every one else 
has the peculiarities of Leo X., and who never approach 
their fellows, even when they have to speak on matters of 
serious import, without putting on cap and bells. They labour 
under the conviction that “ the motley,” as Jaques said to 
the Duke, “ is the only wear,” especially when most inappro- 
priate to the matter of discourse. 

Mr. Welsh was desirous of doing what was kind, of con- 
veying to Arminell what he knew was to her painful infor- 
mation, describing to her scenes which must stir her emo- 
tions, but he could not assume a sympathetic and serious 
tone. He was possessed by that perverse spirit which forces 
a man to garnish his story, however tragic, with quirks and 
scraps of illustration incongruous and out of taste. He was 
at heart full of pity for Arminell ; he had not gone to Orleigh 
on journalistic ends, though not averse to paying his travelling 
expenses by turning what he had seen into type, but he had 
gone for the girl’s sake, and only learned the death of his 


ARMINELL. 


408 

brother-in-law on reaching Orleigh. He knew that she 
hungered for information which she could not receive 
through the channels formerly open to her. As he spoke 
to her, his heart swelled, and he had some difficulty in con- 
trolling his emotion. Nevertheless, he assumed a tone of 
half banter, that galled his own sense of propriety as much 
as it jarred on Arminell. And this masquerade was assumed 
by him as much to disguise his real self from himself as 
from the girl. Verily, in our horror of hypocrisy, we are 
arrant hypocrites. Essayists and satirists have united to 
wage a crusade against cant, and have succeeded so com- 
pletely that we dread the semblance of piety, kindliness, 
sweetness, lest they be taken as an assumption only. In the 
reaction against false appearances of goodness we have run 
into the opposite extreme, and put on a false appearance of 
roughness, hardnuss, and cynicism. Lest we should be 
taken to be apricots, with sweet outside and hard interior, 
we affect to be walnuts, rugged and bitter. A woman poses 
to herself in the glass, and adorns herself with jewelry to 
give pleasure first to herself and then to others ; but men 
cock their hats, smut their noses, make grimaces in the 
glass, and having sneered at their own buffoon appearance, 
pass off the same pranks on their acquaintance. They will 
neither allow to themselves nor to others that they acknow- 
ledge a serious interest in the drama of life, that they have 
respect for what is noble, pity for what is suffering, rever- 
ence for what is holy. They affect to cast burlesque into all 
relations of life, as salt is put into all dishes, to make them 
palatable. 

Arminell was not deceived by the manner of James 
Welsh ; under the affectation of selfishness and callousness 
she recognised the presence of generous sympathy, just as 
she had seen the same quality under the chatter and pre- 
tence of the wife. 

At the beginning of this story we saw Arminell present at 


ARMINELL. 


409 


what we called the grand transformation scene in the panto- 
mime of life ; now she had reached another, and that a 
more startling, thorough-going transformation scene. She 
saw the world and the performers therein differently from 
the way in which she had seen them before, the world in a 
real light, the performers in undress. She had got behind 
the scenes, and into the green-room. Delusion was no 
longer possible ; she saw the framework of the scenery, the 
contrivances for the production of effects, and the actors 
oiling their faces with cotton-wool to remove the paint. 

In former times there existed in England a profession 
which has become extinct — the pro r ession of dowsing. A 
dowser was a man who laid claim to the peculiar gift of 
discernment of metal and of water. He was employed to 
discover mines and springs. He took in his hands a forked 
hazel rod, holding in each hand one of the branches. 
When he walked over a hidden vein of metal, or a subter- 
ranean artery of water, the rod revolved in his hands, and 
pointed downwards, and wherever it pointed, there he 
ordered the sinking of a shaft or well. 

But, although dowsing after minerals and fountains has 
ceased to be practised, we still have among us moral 
dowsers, and it is even possible for us to become adepts at 
dowsing ourselves. 

The old dowsers insisted that their profession was not an 
art but an inherent faculty. The dowser was born, not 
made. But in moral dowsing this is not the case. The 
faculty can most certainly be acquired, but only on one 
condition, that we begin with dowsing our own selves. 
Fiat experimentum in coipore vili. Unconsciously, Arminell 
had been invested with this power ; it had come on her at 
once, on that morning when her folly, her error, had been 
revealed to her consciousness. From that memorable 
moment, when she came to know herself as she really was, 
not as she had fancied herself to be, the manner in which 


4io 


ARMINELL. 


she viewed other natures with which she was brought in 
contact was radically changed. She found herself no longer 
as heretofore occupied with the outer surface, its ups and 
downs, its fertility or its barrenness, the invisible rod turned 
in her hands and revealed to her the hidden veins of ore 
and motive currents. She saw the silver thread deep be- 
low the most unpromising surface, the limpid spring under 
the most rugged exterior. 

As she overlooked the superficial flaws in Mr. and Mrs. 
Welsh because she recognised their substantial goodness, so 
did she begin now to perceive what had before been un- 
noticed in the characters of her father and step-mother. 
She had had eyes previously only for their foibles and in- 
firmities, now she saw how full of sterling qualities both had 
been, of punctual fulfilment of duties, of conscientious dis- 
charge of the obligations imposed on them by their position 
and wealth, of hearty good-will for all with whom they were 
brought in contact. She had disregarded her little half- 
brother, the present Baron Lamerton, because he was only 
a child with childish thoughts, childish pursuits, and childish 
prattle ; and now she saw that his was a very tender, loving 
spirit, which it would have been worth her while to culti- 
vate. In the first moment of disappointment, humiliation 
and anger, she had been incensed against Jingles for having 
assisted her in perpetrating her great mistake. She saw 
what a fool he had been, how conceited, how ungrateful, 
but even over this forbidding Soil the divining rod turned, 
and revealed a vein of noble metal. If it had not been 
there, he would not have accepted his humiliation with 
frankness and have shown so decided a moral rebound. 

When one who has the dowsing faculty is in the society 
of those who lack it, and listens to their talk, their dispar- 
agement of others, the captiousness with which they pick at 
trivial blemishes, sneer at infirmities, blame short-comings, 
that person listens with a sort of wonder at the blindness of 


ARMINELL. 


411 . 

the talkers, at their lack of perception, because their eyes 
never penetrate below the surface, and a sort of pity that 
they have never turned it inwards and searched themselves, 
not for silver but for dross. 

The knight Huldbrand, when riding through the En- 
chanted Wood, had his eyes opened, and beneath the turf 
and the roots of the trees, he looked through, as it were, a 
sheet of green glass, and saw the gold and silver veins in 
the earth, and the spirits that worked at, and directed their 
courses, opening sluices here and stopping currents there. 
So it is with those invested with the dowsing gift — with 
them in the Enchanted Wood of Life. 

In the twilight room Arminell listened to Mr. Welsh’s 
story of the funeral of her father, with tears running 
down her cheeks, regardless of the manner in which the 
story was told, in the intensity of her interest in the matter, 
and conscious of the intention of the narrator. 

The death of Lord Lamerton had indeed evoked an 
amount of feeling and regret that showed how deeply rooted 
was the estimation in which his good qualities were held, 
and how unreal was the agitation that had been provoked 
against him. 

The county papers of all political complexions gave laud- 
atory notices of the late nobleman. Every one who had 
come within range of his influence had good words to say 
of him, and lamented his loss as that of a relative. Selfish 
interest undoubtedly mixed with the general regret. The 
sportsmen feared that the subscription to the foxhounds 
would not be maintained on the same liberal scale ; the 
parsons, that on the occurrence of a vacancy in the Lamer- 
ton patronage, their claims would be overlooked by the 
trustees; the medical men regretted that the death had 
been too sudden to advantage them professionally ; the 
benevolent societies feared that the park would not be 
thrown open to them with the same liberality; the young 


412 


ARMINELL. 


ladies that there would he no ball at Orleigh next winter ; 
the topers that they would not taste again the contents of a 
famous cellar; the tradesmen that money would not be 
spent in the little country town ; the artisans that work 
would be abandoned and hands discharged. Of course 
there was self-interest in the minds of those who lamented 
the loss of Lord Lamerton, regret was not unmingled with 
selfish feeling ; but, then, what motives, what emotions are 
unmixed ? The coin of the realm is not pure, it consists of 
metal and alloy ; and the feelings that pass current among 
men are not less adulterated. But are they the less estirm 
able on that account? Would they pass if unmixed? 
Would they be as poignant if pure ? Why, the very prayers 
in which we address Heaven have their stiffening of self- 
concern, and it is this that gives them their force. Are 
they less acceptable above on that account ? 

Popular feeling was doubly stirred and sympathy for the 
family greatly deepened by the news of the almost simul- 
taneous death of Miss Arminell Tnglett. The notice of her 
death had appeared first in the Times , and then in all the 
papers; but the circumstances were only imperfectly known. 
It was rumoured that the shock of the news of her father’s 
death had affected her fatally — her heart having always been 
weak — whilst in London, staying with her aunt. Such an 
account had appeared in one of the society papers, and 
perhaps Mr. Welsh could give the best explanation of how 
it came there. This was reported at Orleigh. Others said 
she had died at the second family place in Northampton- 
shire ; all agreed that she had been buried there beside her 
mother. Strange rumours had circulated about Miss Inglett, 
but they had been traced to Mrs. Cribbage, and every one 
knew that the tongue of that lady, like that of an ox, must 
be taken with salt. Consequently the rumours died away, 
and were wholly discredited. 

And it was true that Arminell Inglett was dead. That is 


ARMINELL. 


413 

to say, the old self-opinionated, supercilious, self-willed 
Arminell was no more. 

In spring the new buds are sheathed in hard husks. One 
warm morning after a shower they thrust aside these horny 
sheaths, and the tender foliage appears. It was so with 
Arminell. She had hitherto worn her better part, the 
generous qualities of her soul, in a hard and ungracious 
shell ; now this shell had fallen off, and they broke forth, 
ready to expand and clothe her with a new and unexpected 
beauty. 


CHAPTER XLTV. 


FRAMING. 

Mr. James Welsh did all that was requisite for the arrange- 
ment of Arminell’s money-matters. She was entitled to her 
mother’s dower, sufficient to maintain her in easy circum- 
stances. The settlement of her affairs with the trustees, 
guardians, and the solicitors of the family was a delicate 
transaction ; Arminell authorised Welsh to act for her, and 
he managed with adroitness and tact, without grudging 
time or trouble Meanwhile she remained .an inmate of 
his villa in the Avenue, Shepherd's Bush. She did not 
wish to be hasty in securing a house for herself and engag- 
ing a companion. She would not, however, encroach on 
the hospitality of the Welshes, and she insisted on becoming 
their lodger, paying them a moderate weekly sum for her 
board. They were not rich, their circumstances somewhat 
strait ; it was an object with Mrs. Welsh to save the penny 
on the ’bus by walking to the railway arch, and though, in 
their exuberant hospitality, they would have cheerfully kept 
her as their guest, and treated her to the best they could 
afford, she insisted on their accepting her on her own 
terms, not on theirs. 

Only by degrees did she realise to the full extent what her 
social suicide implied. It was not possible for her to 
estimate its cost till she had committed the irrevocable act 


ARMINELL. 


415 


which severed her from the world to which she had be- 
longed ; as impossible, or almost as impossible, as it is for 
the girl who jumps off London Bridge to conceive of the 
altered relations arid strangeness of the region into which 
she will pass through the mud and water of the Thames. 

I know that nothing surprised me more as a child than 
being told that water was composed of an infinite number of 
globules arranged like pebbles in a bag ; but the stream of 
social life, which looks equally simple and elemental, is in 
reality made not only of the little component globules of 
individual life, but of a thousand other circles enclosing 
these globules, all distinct, self-contained, and rotating on 
their own axes and taking their own courses. Each of these 
circles has its special interests, its special tittle-tattle, its 
special spites, and its special ambitions. There are circles 
of all sorts, professional, and social, and intellectual, and 
those who pass from one to another have to undergo mental 
adjustment before they can understand the language and 
partake in the momentum of these spheres. Such is the 
parsonic circle, such the sporting circle, such the circle of 
politicians, such the legal circle. Let a hunter pitch his 
rider in pink over a hedge into a ditchful of picnicing clergy 
and their wives and daughters, and he will be as unable to 
talk with them as they to entertain him. Let Mrs. Brown 
drop through the ceiling into an officers’ mess, and she will 
not have a thought, a taste, a word in common. Suffer an 
archbishop to rise through a trap into the green-room of the 
ballet girls, and what would they have in common? The 
gods live on Olympus, mortals on the plain, and the demons 
in Tartarus, and all roll on together in one current. Dante 
divides heaven into constellations, and purgatory into 
mansions — all the blessed are separated by leagues of ether, 
and all the lost by adamantine walls. They do not as- 
sociate, the former enjoy themselves by themselves in their 
cold planets and groups of stars, and the latter stop in their 


ARMINELL. 


A\ 6 

several torments by themselves. Their several virtues and 
several vices classify them and separate them from their 
fellows. It is not otherwise in this world. We are all 
boxed off from each other, and very uncomfortable when 
we step out of our proper box into another. 

Arminell felt keenly the solitude of her condition, and it 
weighed on her spirits. It was not possible for her at once 
to accommodate herself to her new surroundings. She had 
Mrs. Welsh to talk, or rather to listen to, but Mrs. Welsh 
had no other subjects of conversation than the iniquities of 
servants and the scandals in high life. According to Mrs. 
Welsh, there was but one social circle in which reigned 
virtue, and that was*the circle of the middle class to which 
she belonged. Servants as beneath that were bad, that her 
daily experience taught her, and the upper ten thousand, as 
she knew by the voice of gossip and the revelations of the 
press, were also corrupt. It is conceivable that one may 
tire of hearing only two subjects discussed, even though 
these subjects be of engrossing interest ; and Arminell was 
fatigued with the relation of the misdeeds of domestics, and 
the disorders of the nobility. Shylock said to Antonio that 
he would talk with him, buy with him, sell with him, but 
would not eat with him. Arminell could do everything with 
Mrs. Welsh except think with her. The girl felt her friend- 
less condition. She had no companion of her own age, 
class, and sex, to whom she could open her mind and of 
whom ask counsel. She could have no more communica- 
tion with those in the upper world to which she had be- 
longed, and which shared her intellectual and moral culture, 
than can a fish have communication with the bird. It looks 
up and sees the beautiful creatures skimming the surface of 
its element, sees their feet moving in it, their beaks dipped 
below it, but the birds do not belong to the aqueous element, 
nor the fish to the atmosphere, and they must live apart 
accordingly. The bird can pull out a fish and gobble it, 


ARMINELL. 


4 1 7 

and the fish can bite the toes of the swimming duck, and 
that is the limit of their association. 

I have heard of the case of a lady who was either struck 
by lightning or so paralyzed by electricity that she lay as 
one dead, bereft of power of motion. She neither breathed 
nor did her pulse beat, she could not move a muscle or 
articulate a sound. She was pronounced to be dead, and 
was measured, shrouded, and put into her coffin. But 
though apparently dead, she could hear all that went on in 
the room, the blinds being drawn down, the number of feet 
and inches determined for her shell, the sobbing of her 
mother, and the tramp of those who brought in her coffin. 
She heard the undertaker ask her father on the day of the 
funeral, whether he should at once screw her down — then, 
by a supreme effort, she succeeded in flickering an eyelid, 
and her father saw the movement and sent for a surgeon. 

Arminell was dead — dead to her relations, to her friends, 
and to her acquaintance. They discussed her, and she was 
unable to defend herself. They wept over her, and she 
could not dry their tears. She was incapacitated by her 
own act from giving a token of life. She was separated 
from every one with whom for eighteen fears she had as- 
sociated, cut off from every interest which for all these years 
had occupied her mind, severed from that stream of intel- 
lectual life in which she had moved. 

She would not quiver an eye in entreaty to be taken out 
of her shell, she had deliberately gone into that chest, and 
to it she must henceforth contract her interests and accom- 
modate her habits. When we die we carry away nothing 
with us of our treasure, but we have our friends and relatives 
to associate with in the world of spirits ; Arminell, by her 
social death, had carried away with her her patrimony, but that 
was all. She must make new acquaintances, and acquire 
fresh friends. 

If there be any truth in the doctrine of the transmigration 

2 D 


4i8 


ARMINELL. 


of spirits, then the souls after death enter into new exist- 
ences as dogs, oxen, elephants, cockatoos, or earth-worms. 
If so — the dog that fawns on us with such speaking eyes 
may be the wife we still lament ; and when we cut a worm 
in two with our spade, we may be slicing in half our little 
lost babe ; and the beef of the ox served at our table may 
have been worn by the wandering spirit of our most intimate 
friend. 

There are two considerations which make me most re- 
luctant to accept the doctrine of transmigration — the one is 
that when we leave our human frames and enter into those 
of dog or slug, what wretchedness it will be for us to adapt 
our minds and feelings to doggish or sluggish limits. And 
the other is that the distress must be insupportable to as- 
sociate with those with whom we have lived without the 
power of communicating with them. 

Now Armineli had transmigrated from the aristocratic 
order of beings into the middle class order of beings, and 
she had to accommodate her mind to the ways of this lower 
grade ; and although sitting on a. bench in Hyde Park, she 
might see those she had known, talked to, loved, pass in 
Rotten Row, she could no more communicate with them 
than can those who have migrated into dog, and cockatoo, 
and slug, communicate with us. 

In course of time, no doubt, she would find congenial 
spirits, get to know and love nice girls in this new circle in 
which she found herself, but that would take time. In 
course of time, no doubt, she would find her place in this 
new order of life, be caught by its drift, and drive forward 
with it. When we are in a railway carriage and cast some- 
thing from the window, that object is carried on by the 
momentum of the train, and does not drop perpendicularly 
to the ground. So Armineli in falling from her class was 
still for a while sensible of its impulses, but this would cease 
in time. 


ARMINELL. 


419 


There are cases known to science, in which a person has 
fallen into a condition of mental blank, has forgotten every- 
thing acquired, and all acquaintances, and has to begin from 
the beginning again, to learn to know the relations and to 
acquire speech and every accomplishment. Now such a 
case was not that of Arminell, for she remembered all her 
past, nevertheless she had in this new condition to accept 
as lost a vast amount of what she had acquired in eighteen 
years, and begin to accumulate afresh. 

Now — she was solitary. It had not occurred to her in 
her former life that solitude could be oppressive. Then she 
had counted it as an escape from the whirl of social inter- 
course. Then she had resented advice, and undervalued 
sympathy ; but now, when she was deprived of these things, 
she felt the loss of them. The wife transmigrated into a 
dog may snap and bark, but cannot otherwise express her 
heartache, and reproach her husband when preparing for 
his second wife ; nor can the worm plead and look at us 
out of our child’s blue eyes and tell us it is our own little 
one translated, when we .lift the spade over it. So must 
Arminell remain silent and unrecognised before all those 
who had loved her and known her in her first existence. 

The life she led in the Avenue, Shepherd’s Bush, was so 
unlike what she had been accustomed to that it was not 
possible for her to fit herself to it all at once. But Arminell 
had good sense, and a brave spirit. She did not waste her 
energies on vain repining. She did not recoil from and 
disparage that life into which she had entered. She ac- 
cepted it, as she had accepted the revelation of her 
folly. 

There is a serviceable Yorkshire word, descriptive of ac- 
commodation to circumstances, which is worthy of being 
rescued from a provincialism and of elevation into general 
acceptance, and that word is — to frame. 

A raw country girl is taken into a household as servant. 


420 


ARMINELL. 


If she shows token of adaptability to the situation, teach- 
ableness, and willingness, she is said to frame. 

A clerk settles into an office, is quick in acquiring the 
technicalities of the business, is interested in his work, 
obliging as to extension of hours under pressure, and he is 
said by his employers to frame. 

A newly-married couple, if they make allowances for each 
other’s weaknesses, are not self-willed and unyielding, if 
ready to make the best of all circumstances, are said also to 
frame. 

The frame* is the situation, and it may be of all kinds, 
plain or rich, narrow or wide ; it may be gilt and burnished, 
or of rude cross-pieces of oak. Into this frame the new life, 
like a picture, has to be fitted, so much of margin has to be 
shorn off, or so much of mount has to be added. The 
frame will not accommodate itself to the picture, the picture 
must be adapted to the frame. 

Arminell was in the process of framing, and the frame 
was one of her own selection. Whether suitable or not, the 
situation could not be adapted to her, she must adapt her- 
self to it ; she must cut away here, and piece on there to fit 
it. The reader shall be shown some instances of the way 
in which Arminell progressed with her framing. 

In the first place, the girl had been accustomed all her 
life to having a lady’s-maid in attendance on her, and 
putting to rights everything she left in disorder. When she 
changed her dress, she had b-en accustomed to throw her 
clothes about just where she had taken them off ; she had 
not put her gloves away, tidied her dressing-table, arranged 
her dresses in the drawers. When, at first, she came to the 
Avenue, she did as she had been wont, and was unable to 
understand the hints thrown out by her hostess that the 
maid had too much of household work to do to be able to 
act as lady’s-maid as well. Then Arminell discovered that 
it engaged Mrs. Welsh half-an-hour in the morning, another 


ARMINELL. 


421 


half-hour in the afternoon, and a third in the evening, to 
arrange her clothes and room. And as she was aware that 
Mrs. Welsh had no cook, and had to superintend the cook- 
ing herself, this imposed on her hostess an extra and 
arduous task. Mrs. Welsh expected before long to be a 
mother, and to accumulate work on the good woman at 
such a time was unjustifiable. 

Accordingly Arminell began to put her room to rights 
herself, learned how to fold her gowns, and liked to arrange 
her boots tidily under the dressing-table, and put her towels 
straight on the horse, and the comb on the brush. After a 
week she found that the trouble she gave herself was very 
slight, and that it afforded her real pleasure to be her own 
lady’s-maid. 

That was one item in the framing. 

Mrs. Welsh had not much plate. Arminell was not 
particular about what she ate, but she was accustomed to 
silver and glass, kept very bright, and to unchipped and 
pretty china. The plate of the Welsh establishment was 
electro-plate, and the plating was somewhat abraded. The 
forks and spoons were scratched, not polished. If an egg 
had been eaten at breakfast, it was not impossible to identify 
at dinner the spoon that had been used for the egg. Even 
Castle E claret was not attractive when the bowl of the 
wine-glass bore on it the impress of a thumb. 

One day Arminell said to Mrs. Welsh, “I am sure that 
the girl is overworked. Shall I give a final burnish to the 
silver and glass before they come on table ? ” and Mrs. 
Welsh had joyfully assented. So Arminell began to take a 
pride and find a pleasure in being butler in the house of 
Welsh. 

That was another item in the framing. 

One day Mrs. Welsh threw out mysterious hints about 
the anticipated addition to the family, and lamented that, 
owing to her being without a cook, she had been unable to 


422 


ARMINELL. 


provide the many articles of clothing which a new-comer 
into the world expects and exacts, to wit : — six long night- 
dresses, half-a-dozen flannels, six shirts, the same number of 
little socks, bibs to the number of one dozen, besides other 
articles which for brevity we will include under an &c. 
What would little Welsh do without his trousseau? 

Then Arminell went out and bought linen and flannel, 
and horrocks, and began to cut out and sew, and mark, and 
then hold up the little garments and laugh and dance round 
them, and find a pleasure and pride in being a sempstress. 

That was another item in the framing. 

In a couple of weeks, Mrs. Welsh was unable to further 
superintend the cooking. The heat of the kitchen made 
her faint, and the girl, when left to her own devices, devised 
startling effects, quite Wagnerian, Doreish. 

Then Arminell began diligently to study “ Mrs. Warne’s 
Cookery Book,” and descend to the subareal world and 
direct the proportions of condiments, the rolling of pastry, 
the mincing of veal, and the stuffing of geese. Mrs. Welsh 
had had a limited culinary horizon — beef olives, rissoles, 
haricot, were the changes on joint, and the puddings were 
ground rice mould, “ shape ” Mrs. Welsh called it, rice milk 
and apple-tart. Arminell extended the range, and was 
pleased to surprise and delight Mr. Welsh when he re- 
turned fagged in the evening, with a dinner that was a 
pleasure to eat. In a word she found a gratification and 
pride in being cook. 

That was another item in the framing. 

Later, a little Welsh appeared on the scene, and the 
monthly nurse appeared simultaneously. It really seemed 
as if Mrs. Welsh had been brought to bed of two babies, 
for the nurse was as helpless as the infant. She could, or 
would, neither dust the patient’s room, nor lay a fire, nor 
put a match to the fire when laid for her. She was incap- 
able of carrying upstairs a cup of tea or bowl of gruel. It 


ARMINELL. 


423 


was hard to say which of the two babes was the most 
incapable, exacting, fractious, and insatiable. The maid-of- 
all-vvork lost what little head she had, and her temper went 
along with her head. When, finally, it became clear that 
the corpulent, middle-aged baby drank something stronger 
than milk, Arminell asked to have her dismissed, and 
undertook to attend to Mrs. Welsh and the baby for the re- 
maining fortnight. 

Thus Arminell fell into the position of a nurse. 

That was another item in the framing. 

But there were other adjustments went to the framing. 
Arminell’s superciliousness, her pride of intellect, her self- 
will, required much paring down. Formerly she had 
treated what was common-place and humdrum with con- 
tempt as beneath the regard of one gifted with intelligence. 
Now she began to acknowledge that it was in the fulfilment 
of humdrum duties, and in the accomplishment of com- 
mon-place obligations that the dignity and heroism of life 
lay. 

Arminell had been accustomed to criticise severely those 
with whom she associated, and to laugh at their weaknesses ; 
and now she had learned her own weakness, the disposition 
to laugh at others had departed from her, and was replaced 
by great forbearance. 

She began to wonder whether the regeneration of society 
was to be effected by revolutionary methods, and was not 
best accomplished by the slow processes of leavening with 
human charity. 

How often had she supposed that happiness was im- 
possible apart from the amenities of life, that in the middle 
class, with its imperfect culture and narrow aims, there 
could be no true felicity ; that in the lowest classes, where 
there was no refinement of taste, no polish of mind, no 
discipline of intellect, life must be insupportable in its 
wretchedness. But now she saw that happiness was of 


424 


ARMINELL. 


general distribution and was not to be arrogated as a prero- 
gative of one class alone, that, indeed, it seemed to lose its 
freshness, its gaiety in proportion as knowledge increased 
and culture advanced. The two Welshes were happy ; 
James happy in his work of furious onslaught against 
aristocracy, Tryphoena happy in the little sphere of house- 
hold duties, and supremely happy in giving food to her 
baby. Not only so, but the slave, the maid-of-all-work, was 
happy down the area, and sang over her drudgery. 

Then Arminell recalled the game she had played as a 
child with her companions in a circle, holding a string with 
a gold ring threaded on it. One child stood in the centre, 
and tried to discover who had the ring, and the ring passed 
about the living hoop, and there was no hand under which 
the ring might not be found. It was the same with the 
round game ot life. The gold ring of happiness was not 
retained by those in gay clothing, nor to be found only 
under the taper fingers and in the delicate palms, as often 
it slipped under the broad flat hands of those in washing 
calico gowns, and quite as often was retained by the 
laughing rogues in rags, whose rough hands were begrimed 
with dirt. 

Consequently Arminell’s ideas on this point, as on many 
another, underwent radical change. This also went to- 
wards the framing. Arminell’s manner changed. Her 
impatience was replaced by gentleness and consideration 
for others. Instead of her thoughts radiating from and 
reverting to self, they played about others, to the forgetful- 
ness of self. 

An underlying sadness never deserted her, but never in- 
truded on notice. She constrained herself to be cheerful, 
and its presence was only revealed by great sweetness of 
disposition. She took interest in what interested others, 
and did not force on others interest in her own concerns. 

There are frames ready made for all of us. It falls to 


ARMINELL. 


425 


the lot of an exceptional few to have frames made to lit 
them. Some of us make frames for ourselves, and as we 
always over-estimate our size such frames are never suitable. 
As we cannot expand or contract our frames to our liking, 
we must do the other thing, stretch and shape our pictures 
to them. I have seen coloured sketches on an elastic 
material capable of being extended indefinitely. Well for 
us if our life’s picture be painted on such accommodating 
material 


CHAPTER XLV. 


FAREWELL. 

The house at Chillacot had been temporarily repaired, and 
made habitable, so that Jingles and his mother could 
occupy it ; but the young man shortly after the death of his 
reputed father entered into negotiations with the railway 
company for the sale of the place. His mother was shaken 
by what had occurred. She had been threatened with paralysis, 
and her speech affected for a few days ; but she speedily 
recovered activity of tongue. There was now nothing in 
Orleigh to retain the Saltrens. The mother had never 
liked the dismal house, it was not grand enough to meet 
her ideas, for was she not the sister of a gentleman of the 
press, a man who was certain, according to her account, to 
contest that division of the county in the Radical interest 
at tne next election? She resolved to settle in London. 
There she would be able to assume more conseauence than 
where she and her antecedents were well known But Mrs. 
Saltren laid down to her son that it was not to any part of 
London she would go. She must have a house in the West 
End — her brother, she said, lived in the West End. There 
was no qualifying S. before or C. after the W. on his 
address. Those persons who lived in S. W. or W. C. ?night 
be gentlemen, those who lived in division W. were gentle- 
men. As certain estates in Austria ennoble their pur- 


ARlVilNELL. 


427 


chasers, so did living in the W. quarter of town elevate 
socially. At Orleigh Mrs. Saltren could not aspire to 
occupy such a position as that which her fancy pictured 
herself as adorning in town. There she could figure as the 
widow of a captain ; at Orleigh it was known too well that 
the captaincy of her husband had been over a gang of 
miners. 

The sale of Chillacot would enable her to spend more 
money than was usually at her command, and she talked 
grandly of having a carriage and a button-boy. At Orleigh 
she could not speak as freely of her acquaintance with the 
Lamerton family as she could elsewhere, for at Orleigh it was 
known that her situation at the Park had been a menial one. 
The railway company paid liberally for Chillacot, but not 
so liberally as Mrs. Saltren figured to herself, nor was the 
capital thus acquired likely to cover all the expenditure 
which she flattered herself she would be able to launch forth 
into. 

Marianne Saltren had exercised sufficient discretion to 
hold her tongue about her husband’s concern in the death 
of Lord Lamerton, but she was sufficiently aware of her 
own frailty to doubt whether she could retain the secret for 
ever among confidential friends, and she knew that to trust 
an intimate friend with a secret was the way to publish it to 
the world. Anxiety lest she should be betrayed into com- 
municating what had better remain unknown acted strongly 
upon her to make her desire to leave Orleigh speedily. 

The young man, moreover, had no wish to stay in a place 
which was associated in his mind with too many painful 
and humiliating recollections. It would not be possible for 
him there to escape meeting Lady Lamerton and little 
Giles, and such encounters must be productive of distress 
to her ladyship and embarrassment to himself. 

At Orleigh, moreover, there were no means of his earning 
for himself a livelihood. His mother was welcome, in his 


428 


ARMINELL. 


eyes, to spend the money derived from the sale, money to 
which he had, he felt, a legal but no moral right. The 
captain was not his father, therefore he did not consider 
himself entitled to what he left. 

The desire to make his way in literature had deserted 
him under the rebuff received from Mr. Welsh, and his self- 
confidence had not recovered the blow it had been given to 
make him feel himself qualified to act as political teacher of 
men. 

He resolved on taking a clerkship in an office. His pride 
was gone. So long as he could earn enough to support 
himself and his mother, he did not care in what sort of 
business he made the money, so long as it was fairly and 
honourably earned. 

As the day approached on which it was arranged that he 
and his mother should leave Chillacot, Saltren’s heart sank ; 
but not so that of his mother. She became more talkative 
and more boastful. Only since he had discovered how 
false she had been in the story of his parentage, had his 
eyes been open to her unreliability. Hitherto he had 
looked up to her with respect. He had never felt much 
tenderness towards old Saltren, and his mother by her com- 
plaints had bred in him antagonism towards his father as if 
he were a man who misunderstood his mother and failed to 
show her the love and regard she deserved. There are 
heads like those of thistles, that are full of feather-light, 
mischievous thoughts, which are blown about the country 
and in proper soil germinate and produce a crop of weeds. 
Such was the head of Marianne Saltren, but Jingles was 
sufficiently humbled to acknowledge that unless his own 
heart had proved suitable soil, rich in self-conceit, these 
thistle-down fancies would not have rooted. 

Mrs. Saltren’s acquaintances called to say farewell, and 
before them her boasting was so ridiculous that it covered 
her son with shame. He knew what the circumstances of 


ARM I NELL. 


429 

James Welsh were, and what the position was that he oc- 
cupied in town. 

Young Saltren hesitated for some days how to act to- 
wards Lady Lamerton. Should he call and bid her fare- 
well, or should he forbear? To both a meeting must be 
painful. If he considered his natural shrinking from an 
unpleasant scene, he would desist from paying her his re- 
spects ; but his conscience told him that to depart without 
an apology and a word of explanation would be ungenerous. 

Accordingly, on his last day at Chillacot, he walked over 
to the Park, and asked to see her ladyship. Lady Lamerton 
was engaged at the moment with some ladies who had called 
to pay their condolence, so at his request he was shown into 
the library ; and the butler undertook to inform her ladyship 
that he was there, as soon as she was free from her visitors. 

As he sat in the familiar room, he mused on what he 
had to say. The situation was peculiar, as it was difficult. 
Lady Lamerton knew nothing, he supposed, and need know 
nothing, about the mistake he had made concerning his 
parentage. He could not tell her the story which he and 
Arminell had believed, and on which they had acted, yet 
without this key to their conduct it was hardly possible to 
explain it — to justify it even with the key was impossible. 

As Jingles sat in the study meditating, the door opened 
slightly, and little Giles’s face appeared at it. The moment 
he saw his old tutor he uttered an exclamation of delight, 
and ran to him. “ Mr. Saltren, why have you left me ? ” he 
asked ; “ my dear papa is dead, and I am so unhappy. 
Why do you not come back to us ? and Arminell is dead 
also. I have no one here but mamma. I love mamma, 
but I want you also.” 

Jingles took the little boy on his knee. The child had a 
delicate, intelligent face. 

“ Did you hear that I had arrived ? ” asked Saltren. 

“No; I looked into the library because— I really can 


43 ° 


ARMINELL. 


hardly say why. Since I have lost papa, I go all about the 
house ; I know I cannot find him, but I cannot help running 
into one room and then another seeking him. I heard the 
study door open, and that was papa’s room, and I thought — 
that is — I didn’t think — I wondered who could be in papa’s 
room. I was fond of coming here and sitting on his lap 
and hearing about his rides and his spills when foxhunting. 
Whenever I hear a door open or a step on the stairs, I think 
papa is coming, and then next moment I know it cannot be 
so. Why do you not come back? I am doing no lessons 
now, and am tired of holiday.” 

“ You are going to school shortly, Giles.” 

“ Yes, I know, but not till the term begins. Nurse says 
that I am my lord now, and that mamma will call me 
Lamerton instead of Giles. But I don’t like it. I don’t 
wish to take anything that was papa’s. I always persuade 
myself he will come back. Did they tell you that I saw a 
black coach come to the door and carry away papa ? The 
black coach never came for Arminell. When I saw that, 
papa would not let me tell mamma lest it should frighten 
her. Why was not Arminell buried in the vault ? ” 

“ Have you had any of your bad dreams lately?” 

“ No, sir, but two nights ago I thought that papa came 
to my crib side and kissed me. I did not see, but I felt 
him ; and he put his hand on my head and stroked my 
hair, exactly the same way he did that night when I had 
my bad dreams and saw the black coach and screamed. I 
know papa’s kiss even when I do not hear him speak, and 
also the touch of his hand, which is not heavy, but very 
light. I told nurse about it in the night, after he was gone, 
but she said it was all stuff and nonsense, and I must go to 
sleep. There comes mamma.” 

The boy jumped off his tutor’s knee and stood aside. 
He had been brought up to old-fashioned courtesy, and 
never remained seated when his mother entered the room. 


ARMINELL. 


431 


Lady Lamerton bowed stiffly to Jingles. She was dressed 
in the deepest mourning, and looked pale and delicate. At 
a sign from her the little fellow withdrew. She indicated 
a chair, but Saltren, who had risen, did not reseat himself. 
She did not speak, but waited for what he had to say, and 
she remained standing. 

“ My lady,” said the young man, “ my conscience would 
not suffer me to depart, probably never again to revisit 
Orleigh, without coming here to express to you in few words 
what I feel in every fibre of my heart. I know how much 
I owe you, my lady, — to your forbearance and kindness 
towards a ” — he hesitated a moment, and then said the word 
firmly — “ towards a Prig. I have not the words at my com- 
mand in which even to allude to the debt I owe to one 
who ” 

She bowed her head, she understood to whom he referred. 
His voice refused to proceed with the sentence. 

“ I have come, my lady, in the first place to tell you that 
never, while life lasts, will I forget what I owe to you and 
to his lordship.” 

“ It is a pity ” — she began, and then checked herself ; but 
a faint colour came into her lips, a flush of anger at the 
recollection of how he had repaid the kindness shown him. 

Jingles waited for her to finish the sentence, but as she 
did not do so, he said, “ It is a pity I did not remember this 
earlier. Yes, that I now admit, to my indelible shame. I 
acted most ungratefully. I do not know, my lady, what 
Miss Inglett has told you, and therefore I am placed in a 
difficulty.” 

“ She has told me everything,” answered Lady Lamerton, 
“ at least so I suppose. Here is her letter to me, which you 
are at liberty to peruse, and you will see by it if there is 
anything kept back which ought to be told, or which you 
wish to tell me.” 

She extended a note to him, and he took it, and ran his 


43 * 


ARM WELL. 


eye through it. It was written in Armin ell’s firm hand, and 
it told everything, in her plain, decisive, and direct manner 
— she hid nothing, she excused nothing. 

He returned the letter to Lady Lamerton. 

“ There is but one thing for me to add — or rather,” said 
he, “ one correction for me to make. Miss Inglett takes 
the blame on herself. It should rest mainly on my shoul- 
ders. Without my offer of help she never would have left 
this house. I have no word of self-excuse. No one can 
reproach me more .severely than I reproach myself. In no 
eyes can I figure more despicably than in my own. That 
is all I have to say — to assure you of my gratitude and my 
regret. I thank you, Lady Lamerton, that you have per- 
mitted me to see you and say this.” 

“ Mr. Saltren,” said she, “ I will not disguise the fact that 
you — you and my step-daughter between you — have occa- 
sioned me more grief than has even the death of my dear 
lord. But I am not justified in refusing to accept your ex- 
pression of sorrow, though perhaps it is too early yet, and 
the wound too fresh, for me to be able heartily to forgive 
you both. I acknowledge that you acted for the best when 
you discovered your error, in returning promptly to Chilla- 
cot, so as to silence the voice of scandal. Whether Armi- 
nell was wise in acting as she did admits of difference of 
opinion. For her decision you are not responsible. She 
tells me what you proposed — to telegraph for her maid to 
be sent to Portland Place, and that the maid should find 
her at her aunt’s and accompany her home. If that plan 
had been executed, only ourselves would have known the 
secret history of that London escapade. But she elected 
otherwise. She would punish herself for having thought 
unworthily of her dear father, and for having embittered his 
last hour of life. It is possible, indeed it is probable, that 
it was the distress and alarm which he felt, as he took that 
fatal walk, that blinded him as to his course, so that he fell 


ARMINELL. 


433 


over the cliff. I dare say Arminell has judged right in 
resolving to suffer. I do not blame her. There- is some- 
thing honourable in her resolve to abide the consequences 
of her own foolish act. She has also spared me the diffi- 
culty of meeting her under the circumstances, and control- 
ling and disguising my feelings towards her. If we had 
met immediately, I hardly know how I could have behaved 
with composure and charity towards her. I never, never 
could have loved her as I have loved her heretofore ; for I 
could not have forgotten the dishonour she had done in 

thought to the purest life, the noblest soul ” Then her 

ladyship broke down. 

After a minute she recovered herself, and proceeded, 
“ She has foreseen this, and has resolved to relieve me of 
the restraint, to spare me the trial. I thank her for that. 
I confess, Mr. Saltren, that when I heard you were here my 
first impulse was to decline an interview. But on second 
thoughts I resolved to accord you a meeting. It is as well 
that no one should suspect the wrong you have done ; and 
it is right that I should accept your expression of penitence, 
for we daily ask of Heaven to forgive us our trespasses as 
we forgive such as have trespassed against us.” She paused. 

Saltren’s heart was too full for him to speak. 

Silence ensued for a minute or two. Each stood, each 
with lowered eyes, and with a struggle raging in each for 
control over the stirred emotions. 

“ I will say good-bye,” said her ladyship, “ no doubt for 
ever. After what has passed it is as well that we should 
never meet again. I am glad that you have called. I am 
glad that I have received you. I shall think of you hence- 
forth more kindly, in the light of one who, having done 
wrong, devotes the rest of his life to striving to do his duty. 
Mr. Saltren, our feelings must not be allowed to guide us, 
but principle.” 

Giles Inglett Saltren walked home much depressed, and 


434 


ARMINELL. 


yet content that he had seen Lady Lamerton ; depressed 
because he had seen her and Giles for the last time, and 
content because he had done right in seeking the interview. 

He felt now that he had thrown away an opportunity of 
in some little way repaying Lady Lamerton for the kindness 
shown him. But for his mistake he might at this time have 
rendered her valuable aid, such as, in a time of confusion 
consequent on the fall of the main pillar of a house, must 
always occur. He might have been of use to her in a 
thousand little ways, knowing as he did the ramifications of 
life in the great house ; of use also now with the boy in 
giving bent to his fresh and pliable character. 

A remarkable difference is found to exist between the 
stages of development in the physical and moral natures. 
The insect passes through three degrees, the larva, the 
pupa, and imago, the last phase being the noblest, and the 
middle the most torpid of the three conditions. With man 
and woman physically it is different. The childhood in- 
deed corresponds to the grub stage, but this is immediately 
followed by the butterfly condition, and that of cessation of 
energies and deterioration of beauty follows as the third 
period. In psychical development, however, man follows 
the same course as the insect. After the first voracious 
acquisitive period of growth, comes the pupa condition, 
when the human conscience, glutted with as much know- 
ledge and experience as it deems sufficient, encases itself in 
a chrysalis of conceit, and falls asleep in self-sufficiency. 
Then, after a period of comatosity, comes a shock of awak- 
ening life, the breath of a new spirit passes over the earth, 
the sun smites with provocative ray, arid the sleeping soul 
stretches itself, and suddenly finds its case too strait for it. 
Then that horny hide of self-conceit is riven from top to 
bottom, and falls away, and at length the true, the perfect 
spiritual character comes forth, flutters its wings for a 
moment, gains fresh courage and expands them. It is in- 


ARMINELL. 


435 


deed true that some insects never escape out of their chry- 
salis, and some birds stifle in their shells through lack of 
force to rive the encasing bound. And it is also true that 
there are men and women who to the last remain hide- 
bound in their self-esteem ; and the moral sense, the 
spiritual force, the power of development becomes extinct 
in them. 

In our gardens the spade occasionally brings up these 
dead pupae in their horny coffins ; and we are continually 
coming across human beings in society, in like manner 
enchrysalised in conceit, in which they remain eternally 
encoffined. 

It must not be supposed that the transition condition is 
without its throes and effort. On the contrary, the advance 
to the better, the perfect life is only possible through effort, 
and the effort is stimulated by the sense of oppression, 
through realisation of the straitness of the shell. 

Hard had been the case that enclosed Jingles, but the 
Giles Inglett Saltren we now see had completely emanci- 
pated himself from it. 

When he opened the door of Chillacot, his mother said — 
“ Giles, I have secured a servant. I have promised Tamsine 
Kite a place in my establishment as lady’s-maid. She will 
attend me to town.” 

“ But, mother ” 

“ My dear, it is settled ; and see, here is Captain Tubb.” 

“ Captain Tubb ! ” 

“ Yes, he has come to pay me his respects before I leave, 
and to congratulate me on the disposal of Chillacot for so 
handsome a sum, and to inquire what I propose doing with 
the money — and even to suggest a desirable investment for 
it.” 


CHAPTER XLVI. 


ON FLOWER-POTS. 

Saltren moved with his mother to London, and went with 
her into lodgings. Mrs. Saltren had insisted on taking 
Thomasine with her, and incurred accordingly the ad- 
ditional expense of maintaining her where she was not 
wanted. Thomasine was not likely to be of use till the 
Saltrens got a house of their own, and Giles did not choose 
to take one till he had got into a situation and was able to 
see what his prospects w ere likely to be. As lady’s-maid to 
Mrs. Saltren, . Thomasine was, of course, no good at all, or 
likely, to employ that serviceable Yorkshire word again, “ to 
frame ” as one. 

“ Whatever you do,” said Mrs. Saltren, “ mind that we 
live in the West End. Why don’t you go to Shepherd’s 
Bush, near the Welshes? A man of my brother’s political 
and literary position must have hosts of distinguished 
acquaintances, and a woman of Tryphoena’s accomplish- 
ments and beauty must have the ent?ee into the highest 
circles. If we lived near them we might get good intro- 
ductions. If we don’t get settled to my liking shortly in a 
fashionable quarter of town, I do not know but that I may 
return to Orleigh.” 

“ Return to Orleigh !” echoed the son, “why, mother, I 
thought that your desire had been to leave it. Besides, we 
have not a house there any more.” 


ARMINKLL. 437 

“ I know we have not,” answered his mother, “ but what 
we may be without, it is possible that / might secure.” 

“ I do not understand,” said Jingles. 

“ I think,” said Mrs. Saltren, “ that it is proper the 
money paid by the railway company for Chillacot should be 
put into the bank in my name and not in yours.” 

“1 have already told you, mother,” said Giles, “that I 
will not touch it myself. I consider it yours, not mine.” 

“But I have not the disposal of it.” 

“ Indeed, mother, you have ; it is entered in your name, 
not in mine, already. I have no account at the bank at 
all.” 

“ How can you talk nonsense,” said Mrs. Saltren ; “ you 
have all your savings — quite a fortune — which you got at 
the Park whilst tutor to young Giles.” 

“ My dear mother, I had not the time to accumulate a 
fortune. I was tutor there for eighteen months, and what I 
saved was a hundred and twenty-five pounds, and that sum 
is already disposed of.” 

“ Disposed of ! what have you done with it ? ” 

“ I have purchased an annuity for some one.” 

“ For whom ? for me ? ” 

“ No, mother, not for you. You have the purchase 
money of Chillacot.” 

“ For whom then ? I insist on knowing.” 

“ For a man who has been crippled, and is unable to earn 
his livelihood.” 

“What nonsense ! What absurd fit of heroic charity has 
come over you ? Since you went to town in that strange, 
hurried fashion at the time of your father’s death, you have 
been altered from what you were before, as different as 
canister beef from that which is fresh from the ox.” 

Giles said nothing in self-defence. 

“ But I insist on knowing on whom you have thrown this 
money away.” 


43 * 


ARMINELL. 


“ I do not wish to tell — on a man who has the nearest of 
claims on me.” 

Mrs. Saltren considered, then coloured, looked mortified, 
and did not prosecute her inquiries. “ Well,” she' said 
petulantly, “ a fool and his money are soon parted. I am 
very glad I insisted on having the Chillacot purchase money 
removed from your fingering. Please to ring for my lady’s- 
maid.” 

“ Lady’s-maid, mother ? ” 

u For Thomasine. I want to speak to her. You may 
leave the room. Here we have been in town a week and 
the Welshes have not called. If we are to be more solitary 
here than we were at Chillacot, I shall go back to Orleigh. 
Ring for my lady’s-maid.” 

Mrs. Saltren was, indeed, becoming tired of London. 
Her opportunities for boasting were confined to talks with 
her landlady and her landlady’s visitors. 

It did her soul good, said the woman of the lodgings, to 
hear of lords and ladies ; it was as comforting and improving 
as the words that dropped from the lips of the Reverend 
Hezekiah Bumpas. She felt it down to her toes. 

Mrs. Saltren indulged her in this particular to her heart’s 
content. She knew many persons of distinction. Lady 
Hermione Woodhead, who lived in Portland Place, had 
once been her intimate friend, till they differed about Lord 
Lamerton’s marriage. What had made them differ? It 
did not become her to speak, but his lordship had set his 
affections elsewhere, she could not name in what direction, 
and had been inveigled by the Woodheads into an alliance 
with their family. It was a mistake, an entanglement 
managed by designing women. 

Lord Lamerton was ill after his engagement, so was 
another person who must be nameless. When Lady 
Lamerton died, then his first flame had married — without 
love, and in his desperation he married again. Of course 


ARMINELL. 


439 


after that first estrangement she and Lady Hermione never 
spoke. She — Marianne Saltren — had, passed the Eari of 
Anstey’s family repeatedly without recognition. If her 
landlady doubted her word, let her accompany her to Hyde 
Park, and when the Anstey family drove by, she would see 
that they took no notice of each other. After what had 
happened it could not be otherwise. But though Mrs. 
Saltren could talk what nonsense came into her vain head to 
the lodging-house keeper, she was disappointed that she could 
not to a larger circle, disappointed at the little notice she 
attracted in town. It was most strange that the Welshes 
took no notice of her. She feared that they were going to 
treat her with coldness and not introduce her to the dis- 
tinguished circle of acquaintances in which they moved. 

I knew a young girl who was given lessons in oil-painting 
before she had learned how to draw, and a somewhat 
similar inversion of order went on in the instruction of 
Thomasine Kite, whom Marianne Saltren began to train to 
be a lady’s-maid before the girl knew the elements of 
domestic service, having previously been a farm-maid, feed- 
ing pigs and scouring milk-pails. 

Thomasine did not take readily to instruction, least of all 
could she acquire deference towards her mistress ; and Mrs. 
Saltren was irritated at the freedom with which the girl 
accosted her, and at the laughter she provoked in Thomasine 
when she, Marianne, assumed her grand manner. More- 
over, she discovered that her landlady had be. n questioning 
the girl in private as to the circumstances and former 
position of her mistress, and Mrs. Saltren was afraid that the 
revelations in the kitchen might cause some of her stories 
to be discounted. Fortunately for her, the broad dialect of 
Thomasine was almost unintelligible to the landlady, and 
the girl had the cunning of the uneducated, which leads 
them to evade giving a direct answer to any question put 
to them. 


440 


ARMINELL. 


Giles Inglett Saltren was unaware till he came to town 
that Arminell was settled in the house of the Welshes. 
He knew that his uncle had undertaken to arrange matters 
of business for her, and to look out for a house and com- 
panion for her, but he had refrained from asking questions 
about her, from motives of delicacy. Indeed he had scaicely 
written to Mr. Welsh since his return to Orleigh. He was 
resolved not again to seek his assistance on his own behalf, 
but to find a situation for himself. When, however, he 
came to town, and met his uncle at an office in the city, he 
learned from him where Arminell was, and at once urged 
on Mr. Welsh the mischief which would ensue should Mrs. 
Saltren discover that Miss Inglett was alive and their lodger. 
Welsh saw that, and undertook to prevent his wife from 
calling on Mrs. Saltren, and promised to keep his eye open 
for an opportunity of placing Arminell elsewhere. Marianne 
Saltren shared the prevailing opinion that Miss Inglett was 
dead, and Giles was specially anxious lest she should dis- 
cover that .this was not the case. If she were to see 
Arminell, would it be possible to control her tongue ? 
Would she not be eager to publish the fact that the Honour- 
able Miss Inglett was a guest of her brother and sister-in- 
law? 

It had been Saltren’s intention to keep away from Armi- 
nell, but under this alarm he felt it his duty to see her and 
precipitate her departure from Shepherd’s Bush. His 
mother could not be kept indefinitely away from her 
brother’s house. One word from his mother might frustrate 
Arminell’s intention, upset her plans. From Mrs. Saltren 
the report would rapidly spread. Mrs. Cribbage had ears 
like those of the trusty servant on the Winchester escutcheon, 
and without the trusty servant’s padlock on the tongue. If 
once the truth got wind, to what difficulties would the 
Lamerton family be put, now that they had accepted and 
published the death of the girl ! 


ARMINELL. 


441 


The author of this novel was involved many years ago in 
an amateur performance of “ Macbeth,” but the sole part 
he took in the tragedy was to sit in the midst of the witches’ 
cauldron, and ignite the several coloured fires which were 
destined to flame, as scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, liver of 
blaspheming Jew, were cast in. But when, to Locke’s 
lovely music, the imps and witches danced around the 
vessel, then it was his function to explode a so-called 
flower-pot, which is a roaring, spirting composition of fire- 
work. Unfortunately, at the first chorus and circular dance, 
the blazing flower-pot tumbled back upon the author, con- 
cealed within the depths of the cauldron, and, to save him- 
self from an auto-da-fe end, he enveloped the flower-pot in a 
rug, and screwed it up tight and sat on it. So the scene 
ended, and, believing that the fire-work was completely 
extinguished, he then unfolded the rug. No sooner, how- 
ever, did the air reach the smothered fire work, than it 
bounced, and roared, and blazed with doubled vigour. It 
threw out sheaths of flame, it shot off roman candles, it 
ejected a score of crackers and filled the entire stage with 
smoke, and very nearly burnt down the theatre. 

Saltren dreaded something of this sort happening now. 
The fire work of scandal had, indeed, been muffled up and 
smothered, when first it began to fizz; but — who could tell? 
— if it got air again, even through a pin-hole, it would 
burst into furious conflagration and defy all efforts made to 
suppress it. 

The writer of this story takes this occasion of apologising 
— if apology be necessary — for the introduction, on more 
than one occasion, of his own adventures, his own opinions, 
and, if you will it, his own prejudices into the course of his 
narrative. He will be told that the author should disappear 
as a personality, just as che actor merges his individuality 
in that of the character he represents. He must treat him- 
self as a flower-pot and wrap himself up in the garde-robe of 


442 


ARM I NELL. 


his dramatis persona. I might, of course, have told that 
story of the flower-pot in the cauldron as having happened 
to Jingles at Orleigh, but then I could never have told that 
story again at a dinner-party, for my guest, next but one, 
would say, “ Ah ! that happened to my brother, or to 
my uncle, or to an intimate friend;” and how can I 
deny that Jingles did not stand in one of these relations 
to him ? 

Montaigne, the essayist, was a sad sinner in the introduc- 
tion of himself into his prose. The essay on which he was 
engaged might be on the history of Virgil, or Julius Caesar, 
but there was certain to creep into it more of Montaigne 
than of either. The younger Scaliger rebuked him for it, 
and, after having acquainted the world with the ancestry of 
Montaigne, he ad.ds, “ His great fault is this, that he must 
nt-eds inform you, ‘ For my part I am a lover of white wines or 
red wines.’ What the Devil signifies it to the public,” adds 
Scaliger, “whether he is a lover of white wines or red wines?” 
So, but with more delicacy, and without the introduction of 
that personage whose name has been written with a capital 
D, the reader may say to the author, What the blank does 
it signify what you think, what you like, what you did, 
whether you ever sat in a cauldron, whether you ever had a 
flower-pot fall on your head, whether you sought to extin- 
guish it by sitting on it — go on with your story. 

But a man’s personality — I mean my own — is like that 
piece of pyrotechnic contrivance, a flower-pot. He wraps' 
it up, he smothers it under fold after fold of fiction ; but, 
fizz ! fizz ! out it comes at last — here, there, on all sides, 
and cannot be disguised. There is, to be sure, that subter- 
fuge, the use of the first person plural in place of the first 
person singular, but is it not more vain-glorious to talk of 
We, as if we were royalties, instead of plain and modest I ? 

When Giles Saltren arrived at the house in the Avenue, 
Shepherd’s Bush, Arminell flushed with pleasure, sprang 


ARMINELL. 


443 


from her seat, and with outstretched hand started to receive 
him; then she checked herself, and said, “I am glad to see 
you. Oh, Mr. Saltren, I hear nothing of Orleigh, of dear, 
dear Orleigh ! I have the heartache for news. I want to 
hear my own tongue wag on the subject nearest my heart, 
and to listen to tidings about the people I knew there. I 
am like a departed soul looking back on familiar scenes, 
and unable to visit them and old friends, and unable to 
communicate with them. I am Dives, and Orleigh is to 
me Paradise. You have come thence with a drop of fresh 
news wherewith to cool my thirsty tongue.” 

“ I am Lazarus indeed,” said Saltren, “ but out of Para- 
dise. Ask me what you will about Orleigh, and I will 
answer what I can.” 

“ There is one matter that teases me,” she said ; “ I 
promised a poor fellow, before I left, that he should have 
employment at a small wage, and I do not suppose he has 
had what I undertook to give b>m.” 

“ Do you mean Samuel Ceely . He is provided for.’* 

“ How so ? ” 

“ He has come in, unexpectedly, for a little money, 
wherewith an annuity has been purchased.” 

“ I am glad of that. And — my mother and Giles, have 
you seen them ? ” 

“ Yes, 1 called to say farewell to both. Lady Lamerton 
looks worn and sad, and your dear brother is out of spirits ; 
but this could not be otherwise.” 

Arminell’s eyes filled, and she went to the window and 
dried her tears. 

“ Miss Inglett,” said the young man, after she had been 
given time to recover herself, “ I have only ventured to call 
on you for one reason, that I might impress on you the 
necessity of leaving this house. My mother is in town, and 
she must not be allowed to know or even suspect that you 
are alive and here.” 


444 


ARMINELL. 


Arminell did not speak for some time. Presently she 
said, “ Do not let us talk about anything at present but 
Orleigh. I am parched for news. I daresay there is 
nothing of tremendous importance to relate, but I care for 
little details. How was the house looking ? Were the 
trees turning to their autumn tints? The Virginian creeper, 
was that touched with crimson ? How are Mr. and Mrs. 
Macduff? I could not abide them when I was at Orleigh, 
I could be thankful now for a sound of their delightful 
Scotch brogue. What is Giles going to do? dear little boy ! 
I would give a week’s sunlight for a kiss from his moist lips 
— which formerly I objected to. And mamma — has she 
been to the Sunday School since — since — ? ” 

Then Arminell’s tears flowed again. 

After another pause, during which the young man looked 
through the photographic album on the table, Arminell 
recovered herself, and said, “ Do not suppose for a moment 
that I regret my decision. My conscience is relieved. I 
am beginning to acquire fresh interests. I am now making 
a frock for baby. I am godmother to Mrs. Welsh’s child, 
and have come to be very fond of him. But there — tell me 
something about Orleigh, and Giles, and my mother — 
about any person or animal, or shrub or tree there. And, 
oh ! can you obtain for me some photographs of the place ? 
I should cherish them above everything I have. I dream 
of Orleigh. I think of Orleigh, and — I shall never see dear 
Orleigh again.” 

“ I will come another day, Miss Inglett, and tell you all 
that I can, but to-day I must urge on you the vital necessity 
of at once leaving this house.” 

“ Your aunt can hardly get on without me.” 

“She managed formerly without you, she must do the 
same again.” 

“ But there was no baby in the house then. And, be- 
sides, the new cook who was to have come has failed. The 


ARMINELL. 445 

last went up a ladder sixty feet high, and it took several 
constables and a sergeant to get her down.” I 

Arminell laughed through her tears. 

“ Miss Inglett, consider what the difficulty would be in 
which her ladyship would be placed should it become 
known — ” 

“ Mrs. Saltren and her lady’s-maid ! ” 

The door was thrown open by the maid-of-all-work, and 
she ushered into the drawing-room the person of all others 
— except perhaps Mrs. Cribbage — whom it was desired to 
keep from the house, and she was followed by Thomasii e 
Kite. 

Verily, the flower-pot was not smothered. It was about 
to fizz and puff again. 


CHAPTER XL VI I. 


EQUILIBRIUM. 

The story is told of a mouse having been hidden under a 
dish-cover, and a married pair introduced into the dining- 
room and invited to partake of every dish except that 
which remained' covered. When leit to themselves, the 
woman, contrary to the advice of her husband, raised the 
cover, and out ran the mouse. Blue Beard forbade Fatima 
to open one door in his castle, and of course she tried the 
forbidden key. There was one tree in the midst of Paradise 
of wtncn our first parents were not aliowed to eat, and of 
course they nibbled at the fruit to discover how it tasted. 
All these stories point to the truth that nothing can be re- 
tained from human inquisitiveness. A secret resembles a 
mouse more than an apple or a dead wife of Blue Beard, 
tor the mouse escapes when once uncovered and can no 
more be hidden, whereas the apple disappears when 
eaten, and the dead woman is locked up again. A secret 
when once out is all over the house, and is far too wary to 
be trapped again. 

Who would expect to find a mouse under a dish-cover ? 
So with secrets, they are let loose from the most unlikely 
places, and many of us know that so well that we devote 
our energies to, and spend our time in lifting china cups, 
opening snuff-boxes, removing lids of tea-caddies, unsnap- 


ARMINELL. 


447 


ping purses, pulling out drawers, boring holes in casks, in 
the hopes of letting out secrets. We suspect our acquain- 
tance and visit ” their goods, as if we were custom-house 
officers in search of what is contraband. We know that 
they have a forbidden secret somewhere, and we search and 
probe everywhere to discover it. 

There are mice everywhere ; if we hold our breath and 
remain still for two minutes we can hear them scratching 
and squeaking ; and there are secrets everywhere, behind 
the wainscot, under the floor, in the cupboard. Once I 
knew of a nest of mice in a gentleman’s boot, and once in 
a lady’s muff; and secrets nest and breed in quite as extra- 
ordinary places — in a pocket, in a bunch of flowers, in 
envelopes, under pillows. 

^Esop tells of a beautiful cat that was transformed into 
a woman, but this woman could never forget her feline 
instinct to run after a mouse. A great many ladies I know 
have the same feline instinct to spring out of bed, up from 
their sofas, to make a dart after a secret, i! they hear but 
the slightest footsteps, see but a whisker. I do not blame 
them. Men are sportsmen, why should not, women be 
mousers ? We find pleasure in starting a hare, why should 
not a woman find as much in starting a couching secret ? 

I do not blame them for their love of sport, but for what 
they do with their game when it is caught. We bag ours, 
they let theirs run. Samson did the same. He caught 
foxes and tied firebrands to their tails and sent them into 
the standing corn of the Philistines. Our secret-hunters, 
when they have caught their game, tie brimstone matches to 
their tails and send them among the stores of their neigh- 
bours. 

I do not believe in the possibility of concealing secrets, 
and therefore never try to keep them. As for pursuing a 
secret when once out, that is labour in vain, it changes 
form, it doubles, it dives, it has as many artifices as a 


H8 


ARMINELL. 


chased fox. As soon recover a secret as recondense 
volatile essential oils that have been spilt. A secret is not 
safe in our own heads, for our heads are of amber, and the 
secret is visible to every one who looks at us, like a con- 
gealed fly therein. 

In one of the Arabian Nights’ Tales a princess goes after 
a necromancer who has transformed himself into a scorpion, 
and she takes the shape of a serpent ; the wizard, hard 
pressed, becomes a cat, and the princess attacks him in the 
di guise of a wolf. Then the cat becomes a seed, and the 
w r olf a cock, thereat the seed falls into a canal and is trans- 
muted into a trout, which is at once chased by the princess 
in shape of a pike. Finally both issue in flames from the 
water, the wizard is reduced to ashes, but so also is the 
princess. If we try to overtake and make an end of a 
secret, we shall meet with less success than did this 
princess. She at last succeeded in destroying her game, 
but we, in our efforts to catch and make an end of an un- 
pleasant secret, get set on flames ourselves. If we have 
anything we do not want our neighbours to know, and it 
has got out, we had better let it run ; we cannot recover it. 
Indeed, I believe that the best way to conceal what we do 
not want to have known is to expose it for sale, to dangle it 
before the eyes of every one, like those men outside the 
Fxchange who offer spiders at the end of threads of elastic 
for one penny. Nobody buys. No one even looks at 
them. But were one of these fellows to hide such a black 
putty spider in his hat, up his arm, in his pocket, a crowd 
would collect and pull him to pieces to find the spider. 

It was not immediately that Arminell realised the serious 
consequences of Mrs. Saltren’s visit, but the young man 
knew at once that all chance of the secret being respected 
was at an end. 

“ I am interrupting,” said the widow, knowingly, “ I am 
sure I hadn’t the wish. I came to see Mrs. Welsh, and 


ARMINELL. 449 

never expected to find my sQn here, much less Miss In- 
glett.” 

“ Mrs. Welsh is upstairs with the baby,” said Arminell. 
“You have not seen your nephew. Shall I fetch him, Mrs. 
Saltren ? ” 

“Not for the world, Miss Inglett. I will run upstairs 
and find my sister-in-law, who, I do say, has been 
negligent in calling on me. But if the mountain won’t go 
to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain. I’m sure 
I don’t want to intrude here. You may leave the room, 
Thomasine, I don’t want you to follow me up to the nursery. 
Go down to the kitchen. Every one ought to know her 
own place.” 

When the girl had disappeared, Mrs. Saltren said confid- 
entially, “ We brought the young person to town, and she 
don’t understand how to friz the hair, and me wanting to 
wear a fringe. However she could have had the face to 
offer for my situation as lady’s-maid, passes my understand- 
ing. But, miss, the conceit of the rising generation is sur- 
prising. I want to ask Mrs. Welsh to take the creature off 
my hands in any capacity she likes to name. 3he might do 
as parlour-maid, or nurse-girl, or cook, anything but lady’s- 
maid. I’ve tried to teach her to fold gowns, but folding is 
like music or painting — you must be borne with the gift ; it 
cannot be learnt ; and as some have no ear for tune, and 
others no eye for colour, so have some no natural gift for 
folding. You can’t make, as they say, a fichu out of a 
bustle. I had once a red flannel coverlet, and a hole was 
burnt in it, so I turned it into a petticoat. When the hot 
weather came I couldn’t bear it, and as the Band of Hope 
wanted a banner, I did a non-alcoholic motto on it in straw 
letters, and converted it into a Temperance banner, and 
very inspiriting it was. It is the same with girls. Some 
you can adapt to all sorts of purposes, others you can’t.” 

When Mrs. Saltren had left the room in quest of her 


45 ° 


ARMINELL. 


sister-in-law and the baby, Giles said in atone of discourage- 
ment, “ I do not now know what is to be done. It is in- 
evitable that the news of your being here should reach Or- 
leigh, either through my mother or the girl, probably through 
both, not perhaps at once, but eventually Then — what a 
difficult position Lady Lamerton will be in ! ” 

Arminell looked down on the carpet, and traced the 
pattern with her foot. Presently she looked up and said, 
“ I see — I never did justice to the merits of humdrum. 
Even when I was shown my folly and acknowledged my 
fault, I must needs still play the heroine, and take a bold 
step, not altogether justifiable, because it landed me in 
falsehood, and involved others in untruth. But I thought 
then it was the simplest course for me to follow to escape 
having to equivocate and even lie. The straight course is 
always the best. Now I admit that. Short cuts do not 
always lead where one thinks they will. I wish I had acted 
with less precipitation and more modesty, had listened to 
\otir advice and acted without dissimulation. For myself 
now I do not care, but I do not see how my mother and 
other relations can extricate themselves from the dilemma 
in which I have placed them.” 

“ Nor do I.” 

“ I am neither dead nor alive. The situation is almost 
grotesque. I wish it were not distressing. Do not mis- 
understand me. It is painful to myself only, as every 
sharp lesson cuts. But I am more vexed for the sake 
5 of others than for my own. I have been a fool, an utter 
fool.’ 

She put her hands over her eyes. 

“Upon my word, Mr. Saltren,” she said after an interval, 
“ I have hardly an atom of self-confidence left. There 
never was a more perverse girl than myself, such a profound 
blunderer. I make a mistake whatever I do. What is to 
be done ? What can I do ? ” 


ARMINELL. 


451 


Giles Saltren was silent. The predicament was one 
from which there was no escape. 

“ Your mother’s red coverlet was better than me,” said 
Arminell. “ That did serve some good purpose, to what- 
ever end it was turned, but I always get from one difficulty 
into another, and drag my friends out of one discomfort into 
another still worse. Only here — here am I of any good at 
all ; I was born into a wrong sphere, only now have I re- 
turned to that system in which I ought to have been planted 
when called into existence. And yet even in this I produce 
a disturbing effect on the system of planets I have left.” 

“ You cannot remain in this house, Miss Inglett, not now 
for the reason I gave at first, but because too much is put 
upon you.” 

“ Nothing is put on me — I take on me what I feel quali- 
fied tc execute. Do you remember the answer made by the 
young Persian to Cyrus, when the prince reprimanded him 
because his actions were not in accordance with his pre- 
viously expressed sentiments ? 1 Sire,’ he said, ‘ I perceive 
that I have two souls in me, one wilful and wicked, and the 
other modest and righteous. Sometimes one is awake and 
at other times the second.’ So it is with me. Now I trust 
the nobler soul is rubbing its eyes and stretching itself, and 
the sandman is scattering dust in the eyes of the baser soul. 
My old soul was haughty and lived in an atmosphere of ex- 
travagance, and the new one is humble, and delights in the 
breath of commonplace. Do you remember, Mr. Saltren, 
telling me of the effect of the contrast to you of a return 
from Orleigh Park to Chillacot ? You said that you were 
unfitted by the grandeur of the former to endure the mean- 
ness bf the latter. At the time when you said this, I 
thought that such a translation to me would be unendurable, 
but the translation has been effected, and I am not miser- 
able. On the contrary, but for my self-reproach and look- 
ing back on lost faces and scenes, I should be happier here : 


452 


ARMINELL. 


for the childlike spirit is waking in me, which is content 
with trifles.” 

“ Happier — here ! Miss Inglett, surely not.” 

“Yes — happier. I am happy in helping others. I am 
become useful to Mrs. Welsh, I relieve her of the baby, I 
can even cook fairly, I make the glass and silver shine. The 
work and worry here were more than your aunt could bear. 
Cooks are scarce as saints The last your aunt had — oh ! 
I have already mentioned the circumstances. I will not repeat 
them. I do not feel that the house is small, indeed I am 
glad that it is not larger. We talk a good deal about the 
misdeeds of servants, and the difficulty there is in getting 
cooks ; in my former world we talked a good deal about the 
unscrupulousness of politicians, and the difficulty there was 
in getting morality among statesmen — political morality I 
mean. We discuss now the humours of the baby, what his 
dribbling means — whether teeth or disorder; and we dis- 
cussed then the humours of the public, and what the dribble 
meant that flowed so freely at public meetings. We think 
now how we may cut out and alter garments for the little 
creature ; and then, what adjustments and changes were 
needed for the satisfaction of the public. Conversation on 
each subject is as Interesting and as profitless. I thought 
at one time that I could not live away from rocks and trees — 
I hardly miss them now. I have no time to consider whether 
I want them or not, because I am engaged all day. I really 
believe that the servant girl, the slavey, as your uncle calls 
her, is happier than your aunt or me, because she has the 
fewest responsibilities and the most work.” 

Arminell spoke fast, half in jest, half in tears; she spoke 
quickly, to conceal the emotion she felt. • 

“ Did you see a picture at the Royal Academy a few years 
ago representing the Babylonian Marriage Market? In old 
Babylon all marriageable women were sent up to auction, 
and the sum paid for the pretty ones went as dower for 


ARMINELL. 


453 


those who were ugly. Thus was a balance preserved. I 
suspect it is much the same in life. There is equilibrium 
where we least expect it. The peacock has a gorgeous 
plumage and a horrible voice, the nightingale the sweetest 
song and the plainest feathers. Some of our most radiant 
flowers are without perfume, and some that smell odorifer- 
ously have little in the way of beauty to boast of. When I 
was in the aristocratic world, I had my luxuries, intellectual, 
aesthetic, and physical, but, somehow, I lacked that joyous- 
ness I am finding here. In the middle class there is a 
freedom from the restraints which cramped us in the class 
above, and I have no doubt that there is an abandon , an 
insouciance in the class below which makes up for the 
deficiency in the amenities, refinements, and glow of life in 
higher spheres. There is a making up of the balance, an 
adjustment of the equilibrium in the market-place of modern 
life as in that of ancient Babylon. Those with rank and 
wealth have to walk with muffled faces, only the plain and 
lowly may breathe freely and let the sun kiss their cheeks.” 

“ Miss Inglett, I am surd, notwithstanding your efforts to 
make me think the contrary, that you are not happy.” 

“ 1 tell you that I am. I say this in all sincerity. I do 
not deny that I feel a heartache. That is because my con- 
science reproaches me, and because I now love and regret 
what I once cast from me. If I had not been born elsewhere 
I should be fresh and happy now, but every plant suffers 
for a while when transplanted. I am throwing out my 
rootlets and fastening myself into the new soil, and will soon 
be firm fixed in it as if I had grown there from the beginning — 
my only trouble that I have dreams of the past. A princess 
was once carried off by Riibezahl, giant spirit of the moun- 
tains, to his palace of crystal in the heart of the earth. He 
gave her all she could wish for, save one thing, the sound 
of the cattle bells on the Alpine pastures. His home was 
too lar down for those sounds to reach. Whenever we are 


454 


ARMINELL. 


carried away from our home, we must always carry away 
with us some recollections of pleasant sounds and sights, 
and they linger with us as memories over which to weep. 
But there — we have had enough about myself — nay, too 
much. I want to hear what you are about, and what are 
your prospects.” 

“ I am in search of occupation, and have, so far, met only 
with disappointment.” 

“ You have been anxious. You are not looking well.” 

“ Naturally, I am anxious. I, like you, have the weight 
of the past oppressing me. Unlike you, I have not accom- 
modated myself to my transplantation, but — in fact, I have 
not yet found soil in which my roots may take hold.” 

“ W hat soil do you want ? ” 

“ Any. There is a demand, I am told, for muscle ; the 
market is glutted with brain, or what passes for brain. As 
there is a deficiency in the supply of cooks, I will mount a 
white cap and apron and apply for a kitchen. But, seri- 
ously, apart from my affairs, which can wait, yours must be 
attended to.” 

“ But nothing can be done. You propose nothing. I 
can suggest nothing.” 

Then in came Mrs. Welsh and Mrs. Saltren. The former 
was carrying the baby. 

“ It is all settled,” said Tryphoena Welsh. “ Rejoice with 
me, Miss Inglett. I did want a cook, one not given to 
climbing ladders, and now I have got one; now James will 
swear, for he has been spoiled by your cookery, Miss 
Inglett ; at last 1 have got a cook, the girl Thomasine Kite 
Come, kibS the baby and thank Heaven.” 


CHAPTER XLVIII. 


l’allemande. 

Why, blessings on me ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Saltren, on hei 
return to the lodgings in Bloomsbury. “ Whoever expected 
the pleasure ! And — I am sorry that you should see us 
here, Captain Tubb ; not settled into our West-End house. 
Me and my son are looking about for a suitable residence, 
genteel and commodious, and with a W. to the address ; 
but there is that run on the West End, and it is almost 
impossible, without interest, to get a house. My brother, 
however, who is like to be an M.P., is using his influence. 
But, captain, you see that every house won’t suit me ; I’m 
not going to be in the shade any more. Well, it is a plea- 
sure to see an Orleigh face here; and, pray, what has 
brought you to town, Captain Tubb?” 

The visitor was in a black suit, that obtained for his son’s 
funeral ; he held his hat in one hand, with a broad black 
cloth band about it. With his disengaged hand he thrust 
up his beard and nibbled the ends. 

Ladies play with their fans, coquette with them, talk with 
them, angle with them ; and an uninitiated person looking 
on wonders what is the meaning of the many movements 
made with the fan — the unfurling, the snapping, the ha.f- 
opening. Perhaps Captain Tubb may have been coquet- 
ting, talking with his hat, for he turned it about, then looked 


45 6 


ARMINELL. 


into it, then smoothed it where it was ruffled, then put it 
under his chair, then took it up and balanced it on his 
knee. I cannot tell. If he was not speaking with his hat, 
what else could he have meant by all the movements he 
went through with it ? 

“ Well, ma’am,” said the captain ; “ seeing as how I was 
in London, I thought I’d come and inquire how you was 
getting along. How are you ? And how is Mr. Jingles? ” 

“ I, myself, am but middling,” answered Mrs. Saltren, 
with stateliness. “ My son — Mr. Giles Inglett Saltren — is 
very well indeed. I have gone through a great deal of 
trouble, and that takes it out of one,” said Mrs. Saltren, 
“ like spirits of nitre.” 

“So it do, ma’am. There is a vale of misery; but the 
sale of Chillacot was an elevation in the same ; and bank- 
notes are of that spongy nature that they sop up a lot o’ 
tears. How, if I may make so bold as to ask, is your son 
thinking of investing the money? You see, ma’am, poor 
Captain Saltren and I knowed each other that intimate, our 
lines o’ business running alongside of each other, that we 
was always a-hailing of each other. And now that he’s 
gone, it seems natural for me to come and consult with his 
relict.” 

“You’re flattering, Mr. Tubb. I must say, it is a pity 
my poor Stephen did not oftener consult me. If he had — 
but there, 1 won’t say what I might. About Chillacot, he 
was that pig-headed that — but no, not another word. I’ve 
always heard say that the wife is the better half. What a 
mercy it is, and how it proves the wisdom of Providence, 
that the wusser half was took away first.” 

“You don’t know, Mrs. Saltren, how dreadful you’re 
missed in Orleigh ; the place don’t seem the same without 
you. And folks say such spiteful things too.” 

“ As what, captain ? ” 

“As that, having sold Chillacot, you ought to spend the 


ARMINELL. 


457 


purchase money there, and not be throwing it about in 
town.” 

“ Do they now ? But I’m not throwing it about ; it is all 
in the bank.” 

“I reckon Mr. Jingles — I mean your son, ma’am — has it 
there in his own name.” 

“ Not at all, cap’n. The money is mine.” 

Captain Tubb whisked round the brim of his hat with 
both hands. 

“ There have been changes since you’ve gone,” he said. 
“ For one, there is old bam Ceely married.” 

“ Sam Ceely ! ” echoed Mrs. Saltren, and dropped her 
hands in her lap. 

“ It does seem almost wicked for a man at his time of 
life and crippled. But he and Joan Melhuish have been 
keeping company a long time, and now he has come in for 
some money. I hope,” said the captain, “ that the childer, 
if there come any, mayn’t come into this world with half 
their fingers blowed off through poaching, and a bad life 
through drunkenness.” 

Mrs. Saltren said nothing. 

“ There’s another thing,” pursued Captain Tubb. “The 
new quarry is running out, and we’re thinking of reopening 
the old one.” 

“ What — that which is full of water ? It is worked out.” 

“Oh, no ! there is more lime if more head be taken off; 
but there can be nothing done till the water is pumped 
out.” 

“ You are thinking of pumping the quarry dry ? ” 

“ Yes, ma’am ; with a water-wheel it could be cleared. 
I’ve talked the matter with Mr. Macduff and the trustees, 
and they are content to let me have the quarry rent free for 
five years, if I will put up the proper machinery to get out 
the water.” 

“ The expense will be very heavy.” 


ARMINELL, 


45 » 

Captain Tubb stroked his beard, and put the ends into 
his mouth ; then, after consideration he admitted — 

“ Well, it will cost money.” 

“ And are you really going to sink money in pumping out 
\\ ater ? ” 

“ Consider, Mrs. Saltren, that I shall have the working of 
the quarry for no rent at all during five years.” 

“ And you think it worth the outlay ? ” 

“ Seven per cent, guaranteed.” 

“ My son says that all I can expect to get for my capital 
if invested is five per cent.” 

“ I dare say, in town. At Orleigh, seven.” 

Neither spoke for some time ; Captain Tubb continued 
to play alternately with his beard and his hat ; and Mrs. 
Saltren looked on the floor, then furtively at her visitor. 

Presently the widow asked,' “What will you take? 

1 Sottled stout or spirits and water ? ” 

“ Thank you, whichever you drink.” 

“ I drink neither,” answered Mrs. Saltren, drawing herself 
up. “I taste nothing but tea and water ; but when an old 
f iend comes and sees me, I make an exception. I have 
some whisky in the sideboard — Giles suffers in his inside, 
md I’m obliged to keep it by me against his attacks. If 
you will allow me I will get it out.” 

She rang for water and tumblers, and produced the spirits 
and sugar. 

“ Now tell me some further news of Orleigh,” she said, as 
she stirred a glass. 

“ There has been the cottage^of Patience Kite done up 
again,” said he, “ and she has gone back into it, which is 
unfortunate, for it would have suited me if I work the old 
quarry.” 

“ But surely it would not be large enough for you, cap’n.” 

He shook his head. He had finished his glass, and 
now abstractedly he half filled it with water. 


ARMINELL. 


459 


“ Since poor Arkie died, I’m very lonely. It is fifteen 
years since I buried my wife. I feel as lonely as does this 
drop o’ water in the tumbler, without spirits to qualify it.” 

Mrs. Saltren pushed the whisky bottle towards him. 

“ Mix to your liking, captain,” she said. . 

In old English country dances there is a figure known by 
the name of l’allemande, which consists of a couple dancing 
round each other, back to back, after which they join hands 
and dance down the middle. The allemande lingers on in 
Sir Roger de Coverley, but is never performed in polite 
society. It survives in full force in country courtships. 

VVe who live in the midst of artificiality of all kinds in our 
time of roses sigh for the unchecked liberty of the rustic 
swain and his milkmaid, and kick at the little etiquettes 
which restrain us within the limits of decorum. But, as a 
matter of fact, the love-making below stairs is oblique, 
prosaic, and of a back-to-back description, full of restraints 
and shynesses, of setting to partners, and allemanding about 
them. From the contemplation of pastoral pictures in red 
crayon on our Queen Anne walls, we carry away the notion 
that country love-making is direct, idyllic, and flowery. It 
is nothing of the sort. Come, follow the allemanding of 
this mature pair. 

“ I’ve not yet been to Brighton and seen the Aquarium,” 
said Mrs. Saltren. “ Have you, Captain Tubb ? ” 

“ Can’t say I have, ma’am. It’s lone work going by 
oneself to see fishes.” 

“So have I thought,” said the widow. “And for that 
reason I’ve not been.” 

“ It is a wonderful consideration,” said the captain, 
“how fond cats are of fish ; and how ill the skin and bones 
of a salt herring do make a cat ! For myself, I like trout.” 

“Well, so do I!” said the widow. “They’re fresher 
than salt-water fish, as stands to reason.” 

“The old lord put trout into the quarry-pond,” ^aid Tubb. 


460 


ARM I NELL. 


“ So I’ve heard ; and Saltren told me they were monstrous 
fat and large.” 

“ There is no catching them,” observed the captain ; 
“ the water is clear, and they are wary. If ever I pump the 
pond dry, ma’am, you shall have a dish.” 

“Trout should be eaten when they are just out of the 
water,” said Mrs. Saltren ; “ they lose their flavour when a 
day old. I suppose it will not be possible for me to have 
them trout you so kindly offer the same day they are 
ketch ed.” 

“ Not possible if you are in London,” answered the 
captain. “ Perhaps you’d best come to Orleigh to eat 

’em.” 

Then ensued a silence, broken at last by Mrs. Saltren, 
who remarked, with a sigh — 

“There’ll be no eating of the.m trout till the pump is 
got.” 

“ That is true,” sighed Tubb. “ But then the money is 
sure to be raised wherewith to put up the water-wheel and 
pump. Just consider, ma’am, seven per cent. You’ve not 
thought of investing, have you, what you got by the sale of 
Chillacot ? ” 

This was a direct question, and the captain was scared at 
his temerity in putting it. He ate a whole mouthful of his 
beard. 

“ ‘ A fool and her money are soon parted,’ says the 
proverb,” answered Mrs. Saltren. “Consequently, I don’t 
think I’ll let my money go anywhere without me.” 

Captain Tubb drew his chair closer ; and, instead of 
settling the matter at once, began a fresh allemand. 

“ What do you think of mutton here in London ? ” 

“ I don’t relish it ; and it is awfully dear, so is beef. 
Elevenpence and a shilling for what at Orleigh cost eight- 
pence and nineoence. What fortunes them butchers must 
be making ! x 


ARMINELL. 


461 


<c It seems a sin to encourage them,” said Tubb. 

“ It does go against my conscience,” agreed Mrs. Saltren. 

* Then,” argued the captain, “ I wouldn’t encourage 
them. Twopence and threepence in the pound is too 
much ” 

“ I've a mind to return to the country,” said Mrs. 
Saltren , “ I don’t want to encourage such wickedness.” 

“ And then, ma’am, you can eat the trout fresh.” 

“ Ah, captain ! but the capital for pumping ? ” 

Then Captain Tubb cautiously slid one arm round Mrs. 
Saltren’s waist, and said — 

“ Come, Marianne, with your capital, away from the 
mutton of town to the trout of the country.” 

“ I should like ’em fresh,” said the widow. “We’ll pump 
together for them.” 

The youthful romance-reader exacts of a novel some love 
making, and, to satisfy this reader, I have given this 
pathetic and romantic scene in full. To this sort of reader, 
style is r-othing, characterisation is nothing, the grammar is 
nothing -indeed the whole story is nothing if there be 
in it no love-making. 

That is the spice which flavours the dish, and without it 
the dish is rejected as unpalatable. 

To encourage this reader, accordingly, at the outset a 
chapter was devoted to love-making in tandem, and another 
to love-making abreast. Only one of those love-affairs has 
come to a happy conclusion ; one was broken off by the 
breaking-down of Patience Kite’s chimney. To make up to 
the reader for her disappointment, I have inserted this other 
love-scene, and have introduced it near the end of my book 
to stimulate the jaded appetite to finish it. 

Is it false to nature ? Only those will say so who are 
ignorantofcountry courtships. Oh, fora Dionysian ear through 
which to listen to —not the sighs of prisoners, but the coo 


462 


ARMINELL. 


of turtle-doves ! Now it so fell out that the writer of these 
lines was himself, on one occasion, an eye-and-ear witness to 
the wooing of a rustic couple — involuntarily. It came about 
in this way. 

When I was a boy, on a Sunday, I had set a trap to 
catch rats that scared the scullery-maid in the back kitchen, 
and caused her to drop my mother’s best china. But as 
rat-catching was not considered by my parents a Sabbatical 
amusement, I set my traps on the sly when they were at 
church on Sunday afternoon, and I was at home with a 
cold. The housemaid was left in charge, and naturally 
admitted her lover to assist her in watching after the safety 
of the house. Both seated themselves in the kitchen, one 
in the settle, the other in a chair before the fire. When I, 
in the back kitchen, heard them enter, I was afraid to stir 
lest my parents should be informed of my proceedings, and 
the sanctity of the Sabbath be impressed tinglingly on me, 
across my father’s knee, with the back of a hair-brush, a 
paper-knife, or a slipper. Accordingly I kept still. 

Twenty minutes elapsed, and no words having passed I 
stole to the kitchen door and peeped through. The maid 
sat on the settle, the swain on the chair, unctuously ogling 
each other in silence. 

After the lapse of twenty minutes by the clock, the 
youth lifted up his voice and said solemnly, “ Mary, what be 
that there thing for ? ” and he pointed to a button above the 
kitchen range. 

“ That, Joshua, is the damper.” 

Again silence fell over the kitchen, only broken by the 
ticking of the clock. After the expiration of twenty minutes 
more, the youth further inquired, “ And what be the 
damper for, Mary ? ” 

“For to make the fire go a smother-like, Joshua,” she 
replied. 

Again twenty minutes elapsed ; then I heard a long- 


ARMi. 


drawn sigh, and Joshua said in u 
41 Mary, there be no damper in my b 
“ There come master and mistress 
claimed Mary ; “Joshua, you must go.” 

“ Lord ! ” said the swain, slowly rising, 
enjoyed myself, Mary.” 

Next Sunday the banns were called. 

This was slow allemanding indeed, quite at the 
pace, but then it was the love-making of an inexperie. 
youthful couple. Marianne Saltren and Captain Tubb h^ 
gone through the process, at least, once previously, so that 
there was not the same shyness and stiffness in their court- 
ship. Nevertheless they conformed to the rule of country 
courtship, and allemanded about each other, though, 1 grant 
you, at a sprightlier pace than that of Joshua and Mary, 
before they joined hands and went down the middle. 


CHAPTER XLIX, 


TWO ORLEIGH GIRLS. 

Mrs. Welsh burst in on Anninell one evening just before 
dinner with a face of dismay, and both her hands uplitted. 

“ Mercy on us ! What do you think ? ” 

Arminell stood up. “ What has happened, Mrs. Welsh?’ 
she asked in some alarm. 

“ My dear ! You might have knocked me down with a 
feather. I thought that the girl would be sure to know how 
to do boiled rabbit with onion sauce.” 

“ Does she not ? ” 

“ And there was to be a Swiss pudding.” 

“ That, probably, she would not know how to make, but 
she can read, and has Mrs. Warne to fly to for light.” 

“ I put out the currant jelly for the pudding, and she has 
spread it over the rabbit on top of the onion sauce.” 

Arminell was unable to restrain a laugh. 

“ I went down to see her dish up, and that is what she 
has done. Poured the onion sauce over the rabbit, and 
heaped the currant jelly a top of that. Whatever shall we 
do ? The last cook was bad enough, but she did not spoil 
good food.” 

“ What induced her to do this ? ” 

“ She says that she has been told to put currant jelly 
with hare, and so she has put it with rabbit, as she saw the 
jelly-pot set out on the the kitchen table for the pudding.” 


ARMINELL. 


465 


“ And the pudding ?” 

“ Is without anything. We cannot eat the rabbit. That 
is spoiled ; and the pudding is nothing without red currant 
jeliy. Whatever will Mr. Welsh do for his dinner ? ” 

“ But the girl had Mrs. Warne’s Cookery Book on the 
table for reference.” 

“ Yes, but she also had a sensational novel.” 

Arminell laughed again. “I am afraid the education she 
has received has garnished her head much in the same 
fashion as she has garnished the rabbit, several good things 
jumbled together, making an unpalatable whole. I will go 
and see what can be done.” 

“ I have given the girl notice.” 

“ Surely not, Mrs. Welsh. She has but just come to town.” 

“ I spoke sharply to he?, and girls now-a-days will not 
bear a word. v She flew out at me and said she would not 
remain another hour in the house. Girls give themselves 
such airs. She knows my extremity, how long I have been 
without a cook.” 

Arminell descended to the kitchen, but Thomasine was 
not there. The boiled rabbit stood on the table crowned 
with onion sauce and crimson jelly. Near it lay, wide open, 
a book, not so thick as Mrs. Warne’s Cookery Manual, and 
Arminell stooped to look at it. The book was Gaboriau’s 
‘Gilded Clique,’ much stained and cockled, as if it had 
been wet through, and then dried. Arminell turned it 
over ; it was her own copy, which she had flung from her 
when in the Owl’s Nest, to arouse and arrest the attention 
of Captain Saltren. She could not doubt that it was the 
identical book, for her name was pencilled on it, and the 
water had not effaced the pencil scrawl. She did not know, 
what was the fact, that the book had undergone two im- 
mersions, and had twice been recovered by Patience, and 
that on the last occasion she had passed it on to her 
daughter. 


2 G 


466 


ARMINELL. 


Arminell stood turning over the disfigured volume, specu- 
lating on how it had come into Thomasine’s hands, and 
thinking of the occasion when she had last read it ; and so 
thinking, for a moment she forgot the rabbit with its incon- 
gruous garnishment, and why she had descended to the 
kitchen. She was roused from her reverie by the maid-of- 
all-work coming in excitedly. 

“ Oh my, miss ! What do you think ? Thomasine has 
flown out at missus, and packed up her things in a bundle, 
and gone.” 

“ Thomasine gone ! ” 

“ Lawk, miss ! She wouldn’t stand no nonsense, she 
said ; and if the missus didn’t like her cooking she might 
cook for herself. She wouldn’t stay. Thomasine had a 
flaming temper ; it’s the way of them red-headed girls.” 

“ Thomasine gone ! ” 

“Gone in a tantrum, her cheeks as red as her head. I. 
can’t think what folks find to admire in her hair. It is 
thick and red. I don’t fancy carrots.” 

“But whither is she gone? She is a stranger in London, 
and has no friends.” 

“ I don’t suppose, miss, she knows herself.” 

“ Has she gone back to Mrs. Saltren ? ” 

“ I don’t fancy so. She was in such a rage, she thought 
of nothing but going, and never even asked for her wage.” 

“ Do you know in which direction she went ? ” 

“No, I was not on the look-out. She came flaring on 
me to give me good-bye, and away she went. She said that 
as the missus had insulted her, go she would to where she 
would be valued.” 

“ Have you no idea where she is gone? ” 

“ I don’t know.” The girl hesitated, then said, “ Thom- 
asine said as how there was a gentleman at the hotel where 
Mrs. Saltren first was who admired her and said she ought 
never to demean herse'f to go into service — I can’t say, she has 


ARMINELL. 


467 


spoken of him once or twice, and I fancy he came to look 
for her when she was at the lodgings with Mrs. Saltren — she 
may have gone to ask his advice what to do and where to go.” 

“ That is enough,” said Arminell, and ran upstairs, put 
on her bonnet, and hastened into the street. She was 
doubtful in which direction to turn, but seeing the postman 
coming with the letters, she asked him if he had observed a 
girl with red hair. 

“ What, the new cook at Mrs. Welsh’s, miss? Oh, yes, 
she has gone by with a bundle. Very ’ansome girl, that.” 

Arminell went down the Avenue, and at the corner en- 
countered a policeman on duty. She asked him the same 
question. He also had noticed Thomasine. Indeed he 
knew her. Her splendid build, her profusion of glowing 
hair, and beautiful complexion were a phenomenon in 
Shepherd’s Bush, and all the milkmen, butchers’ boys, post- 
men, police, knew and admired her, though she had been 
in the house of Mrs. Welsh but a fortnight. 

“ Yes, miss, she’s gone down that way — has a bundle in 
her hand. I asked her whither she was going and she said 
she was leaving her situation because her mistress was im- 
pudent to her. Wery ’ansome gall, that.” 

Arminell went on to a cabstand ; she was near the Ham- 
mersmith Station. As a disengaged flyman hailed her, she 
asked him if he had seen a young woman go by carrying a 
bundle. 

“ A ’ansome gal with red hair? To be sure. ’Ailed her, 
but she said she’d take a ’bus.” 

Take a ’bus ! — she had gone on to that great centre of 
radiating streets and roads a few steps ahead. Arminell 
quickened her pace, almost ran, and reached the main 
artery of traffic between the City and Hammersmith through 
Kensington. She had a sharp eye, and in a moment saw 
Thomasine, who was mounting an omnibus. She ran, as 
the horses started — ran, regardless of what any one might 


4 68 


ARMINELL. 


think, but could not overtake the ’bus. She signed to the 
driver of a passing empty cab. 

“ Keep up with the Hammersmith omnibus,” she said, 
panting. “ When it stops, set me down. Here is a shil- 
ling.” She sprang in, and speedily caught up the scarlet- 
bodied conveyance, descended from the cab, entered the 
omnibus, and seated herself beside Thomasine. 

She was out of breath, the perspiration ran off her brow, 
and her heart beat fast. She could not speak, but she laid 
her hand oh that of the girl which rested on the bundle, 
and the action said, “ I have taken you in charge.” 

She was beside Thomasine, and could not see her face; 
she did not attempt to look at her, but kept her hand where 
she had laid it, till the omnibus halted at Broad Walk in 
front of Kensington Palace ; by this time she had recovered 
her breath sufficiently to bid the conductor let her out. 
She rose hastily, still holding Thomasine, who did not 
stir. 

“Come,” said Arminell, “come with me,” and looked 
the girl straight in the eyes. 

Thomasine’s hand quivered under that of Arminell, and 
her face flushed. She dropped her eyes and rose. In an- 
other moment they were together on the pavement. 

“We will walk together,” said Miss Inglett, “up the broad 
avenue. I want to speak to you. I want to know why you 
are running away, and whither you are going ? ” 

“ Please, miss,” answered the girl, “ I ain’t going to be 
spoken to by Mrs. Welsh. Her’s nothing, nor old Welsh 
neither. He is the brother of Marianne Saltren, and no 
better than me or my mother. They may set up to be 
gentlefolk and give themselves airs, but they are only com- 
mon people like myself.” 

“ You have made a mistake, Thomasine. You should 
not have put the currant jelly over the boiled rabbit. 
Those who make mistakes must have them corrected: 


ARMINELL. 469 

How would you like to have your pretty velvet bonnet 
spoiled by Mrs. Welsh spilling ink over it ? ” 

“ I should be angry.” 

“ Well, it is the same case. You have spoiled the nice 
dinner she had provided for Mr. Welsh.” 

“Welsh is nothing. His father was an old Methody 
shopkeeper who ran away, h ;ving cheated a lot of folk out 
of their money. I know ah about the Welshes. I’m not 
going to stand cheek from them.” 

“ But you will listen to a word from me.” 

“Oh, miss, you are different. I wouldn’t be impudent 
to you for anything. But it is other with them stuck-ups as 
are no better than myself.” 

“ You will not try to twist yourself away from me?” 

“ No, miss.” 

“ I want you to tell me, Thomasine, whither you were 
running ? Were you going to Mrs. Saltren ? ” 

“ Mrs. Saltren ! ” scoffed the girl. “ She is nothing. 
Marianne Saltren, the daughter of the canting old cheat, 
and widow of a mining captain. I won’t be servant to her. 
Not I.” 

“ Whither were you going, then ? ” 

Thomasine was silent. 

Arminell walked at her side ; she had let go the girl’s hand. 

“ I ran after you,” said Arminell. 

“ Was that what made you so hot and out of breath, mis's? ' 

“Yes, I was frightened when I heard that you had gone 
away.” 

“ What was there to frighten you ? I had not taken any 
spoons.” 

“ I never supposed that for a moment. I was alarmed 
about yourself.” 

“ I can take care of myself. I am old enough.” 

“ I am not sure that you can take care of yourself. 
Thomasine, you and I come from the same place, dear 


470 ARM IN ELL. 

Orleigh, and it is such a pleasure to me to see you, and 
hear you talk. When I found that you were gone, I 
thought what shall I do without my dear Tamsine to talk 
with about the old place I love so much?” 

“ Why don’t you go back to it, miss, if you like it ? ” 
asked the girl. 

“ Because I cannot. Come closer to me.” Arminell 
caught the girl’s hand again. “ I also ran away. I ran 
away, as you are running away now. That has brought 
upon me great sorrow and bitter self-reproach, and I would 
save you from doing the same thing that I have done, and 
from the repentance that comes too late.” 

“ They said at Orleigh, miss, that you were dead.” 

“ 1 am dead to Orleigh and all I love there. Why did 
you come to town with Mrs. Saltren, if you do not care to 
be with her ? ” 

“ Because I wanted to see the world, but I had no inten- 
tion of remaining with her.” 

“ Then what did you intend ? ” 

Thomasine shrugged her shoulders. “ I wanted to see 
life, and have some lun, and know what London was like. 
I don’t want to slave here as I slaved in a farm.” 

“ You came to town restless and discontented, so did I ; 
and n w I would give everything I have to be set back 
where I was. You came in the same spirit, and I have 
stopped you on the threshold of a grave disaster, and per- 
haps saved you from unutterable misery. Thomasine, dear 
Thomasine, tell me the truth. Were you going to that 
hotel where some one flattered your vanity and held out to 
you prospects of idleness? You were leaving hard work 
and the duties that fell to your lot where God placed you, 
because impatient of restraint. You had learned the one 
lesson that is taught in all schools to boys and girls alike — 
hatred ol honest work. Tamsine, you must return with 


ARMINELL. 47 I 

The girl pouted. Arminell, looking round, saw the curl 
in her lip. 

“I don’t care to be under the Welshes,” said the girl ; 
“ nor Marianne Saltren, neither. They ain’t better than 
me, and why shouldn’t I be as stylish as they ? ” 

“ If you resent being with them, be with me. Be my 
maid. I am not going to remain in Shepherd’s Bush. I 
intend to take a house somewhere in the country — some- 
where where I can be useful, and, Tamsine, find work, hard 
work that I can do for others. That is what I seek now 
for myself. Will you come with me ? Then we two 
Orleigh girls will be together, that will be charming.” 

Thomasine turned and looked wonderingly at Miss 
[nglett. We two Orleigh girls ! We — the baron’s 
daughter and the wise woman’s bastard. 

“ I’d like my frolic first,” said Thomasine. 

“ After that — I could not receive you,” answered Arminell 
gravely. 

“ I don’t see,” said Thomasine, still pouting, but uneasy 
and undecided, with the colour flying in flakes over her 
face and showing through the transparent complexion. “ I 
don’t see why we are to be always kept at work, and not 
be allowed to amuse ourselves. We aren’t young for 
long.” 

“ Tamsine,” said Arminell, “ poor Arkie Tubb sat by you 
when your mother’s cottage was being pulled down, and 
when you thought that she was in danger, and you could 
not run to her aid yourself, because you had turned your 
ankle, you sent him. You sent him to his death. The 
chimney fell and buried him. If he had considered himself 
he would not have risked his life for your mother. We all 
honour him for what he did. He never was clever and 
sharp in life, he failed in everything he undertook, he even 
failed then, for he did not bring your mother out of the ruin, 
he was buried in it himself. But he was a hero in his 


472 


ARM I NELL. 


death because he sacrificed himself for others — for you, be- 
cause he loved you, and for your mother .’ 5 

Thomasine said nothing, but her hand twitched in that 
of Arminell. 

“ You must be worthy of him, remain worthy of him. 
Thomasine, if you follow your own self-will and passion for 
pleasure, people will say it was well that Arkie Tubb died, 
she was not deserving of him.” 

They had reached the head of the Broad Walk, and issued 
from' Kensington Park into Uxbridge Road. The stream 
of traffic flowed east and west, east to the City, west to 
Shepherd’s Bush, past them, and they stood watching the 
two currents. Thomasine withdrew her hand. 

Arminell was certain that this was a critical moment in 
the girl’s heart. She c aid nothing more. She had said 
enough, she waited. Thomasine turned her face east, and 
took a step in that direction with a. red flush in her cheek. 
Then the red flush rose to her brow and deserted her cheek, 
and she turned back. 

Presently she said, “ May T take your hand again, miss ? 55 

Arminell readily gave it. 

Then Thomasine strode to the west, holding Arminell. 
She seemed fearful of herself if left to herself, but confident 
•whilst holding the hand of Arminell. The good angel had 
conquered, and that good angel was the thought of poor, 
blundering, kindly, stupid Arkie Tubb. 

Is ever a life utterly thrown away? It had seemed so 
when the stones crushed the soul out of that lad. A profit- 
less life had ended unprofitable But see! Here at the 
end of Broad Walk, Kensington, that cast-away life was the 
saving of the girl whom he had loved unprofitably. 


CHAPTER L. 


A RAZOR TO CUT CABBAGES. 

An old man told me one day that he had spent fifty years 
of his liie in making a concordance of the Bible — he had 
never heard of Cruden’s work. The labour of fifty years 
thrown away ! I know another who sank all his savings in 
publishing a Law Compendium he had compiled, and u hen 
it was published sold two copies. 

Jingles was going through a heart-breaking experience. 
He was discovering that ail he had acquired in school and 
university was a disadvantage to him in the position in which 
he now found himself. 

He had been well educated, had been polished and 
sharpened ; but the money spent on his education might 
as well have been thrown into the sea, and the lime devoted 
to learning have been as profitably given up to billiards. 

This would not have been the case had Giles Inglett 
Saltren been able to enter a learned profession, but as this 
was out of the question, his education was profitless. He 
had been qualified to take his place in a social class in 
which he was no more able to show himself. 

One day Jingles had given his lazor to a boy to sharpen 
for him. The lad took it to a grindstone and put an edge 
to the back. “ Please, sir,” said the fellow when repri- 
manded, “ the front was middling sharp, so I thought 


474 


ARMINELL. 


I’d put an edge to the back.” Jingles remembered this 
incident now with some bitterness. He had been sharpened 
on the wrong side for cutting his way. He was a classic 
scholar, knew his HSschylus and Euripides, and could write 
elegant Latin verses. He was disciplined in the manners 
and habits of the upper class. But he knew little of modern 
languages, and his working out of a sum in compound addi- 
tion left much to be desired. 

At first he looked out for such a situation as would suit 
him, but speedily discovered that what he must find was a 
situation which he would suit. 

A librarianship, a secretaryship, lastly a tutorship, com- 
mended themselves to him as situations for which he was 
• ludified; but such situations are few, and the applicants 
are legion. 

The paralytic in the Gospel was always wanting to be let 
down into Siloam after the troubling of the water, but in- 
variably found that some one else had stepped in whilst he 
was being carried, or was laboriously dragging himself to the 
hr nk. It was so with Jingles. When he did hear of a 
vacancy that would suit him, and made application for it, 
it was to find that another had stepped in before him. 

He tried for private pupils. He was ready to attend any 
house and teach during the day. He would prefer that to 
being again taken into a family as a resident tutor, but he 
was not even as successful as Nicholas Nickleby. There 
were no little Miss Kenwigses to be taught. 

He had a difficulty about giving references. He could 
not mention Lady Lamerton, and invite inquiries concerning 
him of the family at Orleigh Park. At first he was reluctant 
to apply to his uncle for a testimonial, or for leave to use his 
name, but when he found that his way was blocked through 
l ick of references, he swallowed his pride and asked the 
requisite permission of Mr. Welsh. The leave was granted, 
and conduced to nothing. 


ARM1NELL. 


475 


If pride could have fattened, about this time, Jingles 
ought to have grown plump, he swallowed so much of it ; 
but it was like blackbeetles to a cat — it made him grow 
lanker. 

He spent a good deal of money in advertising in the 
daily papers, but got no answers. Then he took to answer- 
ing advertisements, and met with no better success. Then 
he applied to agents, paid fees, and got no further. It was 
to the advantage of these go-betweens to put bad men in 
good posts, and thrust good men into bad posts, to plant 
square men into round holes, and round men in square 
holes. 

Every change brought an additional fee, and naturally 
this consideration had its influence on the agents. 

There was a whole class of middle schools conducted by 
speculative men without education themselves, for the sons 
of tradesmen and farmers, where the teaching given was of 
the worst description, and the moral supervision was ot 
the most inefficient quality. The ushers in these were 
Germans, Swiss, and French, men out of pocket and out at 
elbows, picking up a wretched subsistence, and eating as 
their daily diet humble-pie. The doors of these “Acade- 
mies for Young Gentlemen ” were closed to Saltren because 
he was an University man and a scholar. He was danger- 
ous, he knew too much, and might expose the hollowness 
of these swindles. 

Convinced at length that there was no hope of his getting 
any place such as he would like, in which his acquirements 
would avail, Jingles turned to commercial life. But here 
also he found that his education stood in the way. He 
went to Mincing Lane in quest of a clerkship in one of the 
great tea, rice, sugar, and spice firms ; but there an accoun- 
tant and not a logician was wanted. 

Next he visited Mark Lane and sought admission into 
one of the great corn-factors’ offices. He was too raw tor 


ARM IN ELL. 


476 

these men ; what were wanted in such houses as these in 
Mark and Mincing Lanes were sharp lads of from seventeen 
to nineteen, trained at Board Schools, who could reckon 
rapidly, and were not above being sent messages ; lads who 
would be filed into business shape, who were disciplinable 
to take a special line, not young men educated already and 
with their heads stuffed with matter utterly useless for 
business. 

In a state of discouragement Jingles next visited Lloyds. 
There it was the same. What did he want? To become 
an underwriter ! Well and good, let him deposit five thou- 
sand pounds and find a clerk at two hundred, with five per 
cent on all transactions, till he had himself thoroughly 
mastered the system of underwriting. He could not afford 
this. He must be taken on as clerk. Where? At Lloyds, 
or at one of the Marine Insurance offices that has its base 
at Lloyds. What did he know of the work ? The clerk 
has to go round with policies to be initialed, and when the 
books return to the office after four o’clock, he has to make 
them up. What did he understand about the value of 
cargoes and the risks run ? There was no place for him in 
a Marine Insurance. Some one recommended him to try 
stockbroking. 

Like a greenhorn, as he was, Jingles made at once for 
the Exchange, and, passing the porters, entered the House. 
The vast space was crowded. The din bewildered him. 
He heard names shouted from the telegraph offices, the call 
of porters, the voices of the stock-jobbers raised in dispute 
or argument. All at once an exclamation, “ Seventeen 
hundred .” 1 Then ensued a gravitation towards himself, 
and in a moment his hat was knocked over his eyes, then 
he was thrust, elbowed, jostled from side to side. 

When he recovered his sight, his hat was snatched from 

1 This was the original number on Exchange, and the call is one to 
attract attention to an unv arranted intrusion. 


ARMINELL. 


477 


his hand and flung across ihe House. Next, his umbrella was 
wrenched from him, and with it he was struck over the back. 

“ You have no right in here, sir,” said a porter. 

“ Don’t mind him,” shouted a dozen around. “ We are 
heartily glad to make your acquaintance.” 

The horseplay was resumed, and as the young man’s 
blood rose, and he resented the treatment, and showed 
fight, he was still more roughly handled, and finally found 
himself kicked and hustled out of the Exchange. 

Giles Sallren stood on the step without, minus a hat and 
umbrella, and with his coat split down the back — his best 
coat put on to produce a good impression on employers — 
stood dazed and humbled, an object of derision to match- 
boys and flower-girls, who danced about him, with words 
and antics of mockery. 

Presently an old white-haired stockbroker, who came out 
of the Exchange, noticed him, and stopped and spoke to 
him, and bade him not be angry. What had occurred was 
due to his having intruded where he had no right to be. 
Jing’es answered that he had gone there because he was in 
quest of employment, whereupon he was told he might just 
as well have jumped into the Thames because he desired 
engagement on a penny steamer. 

“Young gentleman,” said the broker, “it is of no use 
your looking lor employment in our line of business. We 
have a Clerks’ Provident Fund, to wdiich every clerk out of 
employ subscribes ; and if a broker wants a man at forty, 
sixty, a hundred, two hundred pounds, he applies to the 
secretary of the Provident Fund, who furnishes him with 
the man he wants out of the number of those then disen- 
gaged. You have no experience, or you would not have 
ventured into the House. If I want an errand boy, I take 
on the son of a clerk. You have, I fear, no connexions in 
the line to speak a word for you ! You have been to the 
University, do you say ? ” 


478 


ARMINELL. 


The broker whistled. 

“ My good sir, I do not recommend you to waste time in 
applying at stockbrokers’ offices ; you are likely to make 
acquaintance with the outside only of their office doors. 
There is more chance for the son of a bed-maker or a 
chimney-sweep than for you.” 

Giles Saltren next sought admission into a bank, but 
found that this was a business even more close than that of 
stock-jobbing. The banking business was like the sleeping 
Brynhild, surrounded by a waberlohe , a wall of flame ; and 
he was no Siegfried to spur his horse through the ring of 
fire. 

Having discovered how futile were his attempts to enter 
a bank, he turned to the docks, in hopes of getting a situa- 
tion in a shipping-office, only there also to meet with rebuff. 

Then he saw an advertisement from a West-End shop- 
keeper, one of those giants of trade, who has an universal 
store. There was a vacancy in the stocking department for 
a young man. Applicants were to appear personally at a 
fixed hour on Friday next. 

Giles Inglett hesitated before he could resolve to offer 
himself as a counter-jumper, and acquire the “ What can 
we serve you next with, ma’am ? ” To descend to the 
counter from the Oxford schools was a great descent ; but 
Jingles was like a vessel in stress of weather, throwing over- 
board all her lading. Away must go his Greek, his Latin, 
his logic, his position as an University scholar, that of a 
gentleman, his self-esteem, certainly, his self-respect to 9ome 
extent, his ambition altogether. 

But why not ? He was not born to be a gentleman ; it 
was by a happy accident that he had been given an educa- 
tion that furnished him with most accomplishments which 
adorn a man of birth and standing. He must remember 
that he was not entitled by his parentage to anything above 
a shopman’s place, and must gulp down this junk of pride. 


ARM I NELL. 


479 


On the appointed day Saltren went to Westbourne Grove, 
and found that he was but one of between three or four 
hundred young men, applicants for the vacancy behind the 
stocking counter. His appearance, delicate and refined, 
the diffidence with which he spoke, were against him, and 
he found himself at once and decisively rejected, and a 
vulgar young fellow at his side, full of self-conceit, was 
chosen instead. 

Saltren made application in other offices, but always 
without success : his ignorance of shorthand was against 
him. In the offices of solicitors it is indispensable that 
shorthand be practised by the clerks. It facilitates and 
expedites the dictation of letters. 

So also, had he been a proficient in shorthand, he might 
have obtained work as a reporter at meetings. But to his 
grief he discovered that all the education he had received 
which tended to broaden the mind was valueless, that only 
was profitable which contracted the intellect. Saltren, 
moreover, was speedily given to understand that unless he 
went in search of a situation with gold in his hand, he could 
get nothing. With capital, his intellectual culture would be 
graciously overlooked and excused. His university educa- 
tion was such a drawback, that it could only be forgiven if 
he put money into the concern where he proposed to enter. 

Saltren had come to the end of his own resources, and 
he saw that without capital he could get admission nowhere. 
He could not obtain a clerkship in any kind of business ; 
the sole chance of entering a commercial life was to be- 
come a partner in one. 

There was abundance of advertisements for partners in 
the daily papers, but nearly all the businesses, when exam- 
ined, proved unsatisfactory, and the risk of losing all too 
great. Giles Saltren had, indeed, no capital of his own ; 
but he resolved, should he see a chance ©f making an in- 
vestment that was safe, and one which would give him work 


480 


ARMINELL. 


in a partnership, to propose to his mother that she should 
in this manner dispose of the purchase-money for Chillacot. 
She would derive from it an annual sum as interest, and 
have the satisfaction as well of knowing that she had found 
employment for her son. 

At last he found what he sought, and sanguine as to the 
results, he came to his mother’s lodgings to make the pro- 
posal to her. 

“Please, Mr. Saltren,” said the landlady; “your mother 
has gone out with the admiral.” 

“ The admiral ? ” 

“ Ah, the admiral, sir ! ” said the landlady, with a know- 
ing smile. “ You don’t mean to say, Mr. Saltren, that your 
mother hasn’t told you ? and a beautiful breakfast spread, 
and a cake with a cupid at top all made of sugar.” 

“ But what admiral ? we know no admiral ! ” 

“What, not Admiral Tubb ? Well now, Mr. Saltren, 
who would have thought your mother would have been so 
sly as not to have told you that she was going to give you a 
new pa ? ” 

“ Upon my word, I do not understand you.” 

“Then, Mr. Saltren, you come along with me, and see 
the breakfast laid in the dining-room, and the beautiful 
wedding-cake all over orange-flowers. It does seem sharp 
work too, when your father died so very recently ; but if 
widows don’t seize the moments as they fly, and take ad- 
mirals by the forelock, they may be left in their weeds till it 
is too late. Why, bless me, Mr. Saltren, here they 
come ! ” 

“ But,” persisted Jingles, much astonished, and almost 
persuaded that Mrs. Bankes, the lodging-house-keeper, had 
gone off her head, “ what admiral ? ” 

“ Admiral Tubb, sir, R.N. Your mother told me so. 
There they are. Lawk, sir ! he in lavender don’t-mention- 
ems and yaller gloves ; and she is in a beautiful Brussels 


ARMINELL. 48 1 

veil that must have cost ten pounds, and the cabby wearing 
of a favour.” 

Into the house sailed Mrs. Saltren — Saltren no more, but 
Tubb — with a long white veil over her head, and orange- 
blossoms in her hand, wearing a grey silk gown. Captain 
Tubb advanced with her on his arm, and looked red and 
sheepish. 

“ My child,” said Marianne, “come and salute your new 
father. This distinguished officer — I mean,” she hesitated 
and corrected herself, “Bartholomew Tubb has prevailed 
on me to lay aside my widow’s cap for the bridal-veil. And, 
oh ! my Giles, you will be pleased to hear that the capi al 
I got through the sale of Chillacot is to be sunk in the old 
quarry, and me and the admiral— I mean Tubb— are going 
to join hands and pump the water out” ^ 


CHAPTER LI. 


A PATCH OF BLUE SKY. 

About the same time that Jingles was situation-hunting, 
Arminell was engaged in house-hunting. She had made up 
her mind to take a cottage on the ^outh coast. Mrs. Welsh 
had, at length, got a cook who did passably. She had fits 
occasionally and frothed at the mouth ; she also kicked out 
with her legs convulsively on these occasions and kicked 
over every little table near her, regardless of what was on it 
— a glass custard-dinh, a sugar-bowl, or, indeed, anything 
smashable. However, between her fits she was a good 
plain cook, and the fits did not come on every day. When 
they did, Mrs. Welsh telegraphed to her husband to dine at 
a restaurant, and she satisfied herself on scraps. Conse- 
quently, the inconvenience was not serious, and as cooks 
are rare as capercailzies, Mrs. Welsh was glad to have one 
even with the disadvantage of epileptic attacks. 

Mr. Welsh placed himself and his time at the service of 
Arminell. He went with her to Brighton, St. Leonards, 
Worthing, Littlehampton, Bournemouth ; and finally Ar- 
minell decided on purchasing a small house at the last- 
named place — a pretty villa among the pines, w r ith a view 
of the sea, a garden, a conservatory. The girl had scruples 
about troubling the journalist so much, but he insisted that 
his excursions with her gave him pleasure, and he did every- 


ARM I NELL. 


483 


thing he could for her, and did it in the most cheery, con- 
siderate and hearty manner. 

Welsh was a shrewd man of business, and he fought hard 
over the terms before he bought, and keenly scrutinised the 
title. 

Then ensued the furnishing, and in this Arminell did not 
trust Mr. Welsh. His ambition was to do all his purchases 
cheaply. He would have ordered her sets for her several 
rooms in Tottenham Court Road, and gloried in having got 
them at an extraordinarily low figure. Arminell took Mrs. 
Welsh with her when making her purchases ; not that she 
placed any value on that lady’s taste, but because she was 
well aware that Dy so doing she was giving to her hostess 
the richest treat she could devise. There is, undoubtedly, 
positive enjoyment in spending money, and next to the 
pleasure of spending money oneself, is that of accompany- 
ing another shopping who spends money. After a day’s 
shopping and the expenditure of a good many pounds, un- 
questionably one feels morally elevated. And one is con- 
scious of having done meritoriously when one acts as a goad 
to a companion, urging her to more lavish outlay, spurring 
her on when her heart fails at the estimation of the cost. 
How mean you think your friend if she buys material at 
twopence-three-farthings instead of that which is superior at 
threepence. How vehemently you impress on her the mis- 
take of purchasing only five-and-a half yards instead of six. 
Margin, you urge, should always be given. It is false econo- 
my to cut your cloth too close. With what rigidity of 
spinal marrow do you sit on your tall chair and scorn the 
woman on your left who asks for cheaper Swiss embroidery 
at threepence-farthing, when your friend on your right is 
buying hers at a shilling. With what an approving glow of 
conscience do you smile when you hear your companion’s 
bill reckoned up as over fifteen pounds ; and then you 
snatch the oppoitunity to secure a remnant or a piece of 


484 


ARMINELL. 


tarnished material, with a haughty air, and bid that it be 
put in with the rest — it will serve for a charity in which you 
are interested : to wit — but you do not add this — the 
charity that begins and ends with home. 

Next to the enjoyment of shopping with a friend, who is 
lavish of her money, comes the luxury of discu. sing the 
purchases after, of debating whether this stamped velvet 
was, after all, the right thing, and whether that tapestry silk 
would not have been better ; whether the carpet and the 
curtains will harmonise, and the paper for the wall accord 
with both. 

It was a disappointment to Mrs. Welsh that Arminell did 
not have a dado with water-reeds and sunflowers, and storks 
flying or standing on one leg. “ It is the fashion, I assure 
you,” said she, ‘‘as you may see in our drawing room at 
Shepherd’s Bush.” But then, it was a shock of surprise and 
adoring admiration that came on Tryphoena Welsh, when, 
after having advised jute for curtains and sofa-covers, be- 
cause so extraordinarily cheap, Arminell had deliberately 
turned to stamped velvet. 

“Dear me ! ” said Mrs. Welsh to her husband one night, 
when they were alone, “how you do worship Miss Inglett. 
Not that I’m jealous. Far be it from me, for I admire her 
as much as I love her ; but I am surprised at it in' you — 
and she related to the nobility. It is inconsistent, Welsh, 
with your professions, as inconsistent as it would be for Mr. 
Spurgeon to be found crossing himself in a Roman Catholic 
chapel.” 

“ My dear Tryphoena,” said James Welsh, “ I do not deny 
that the British aristocracy has its good qualities — for one, 
its want of stuck-upedness. For another, its readiness to 
adapt itself to circumstances. It is part of their education, 
and it is not part of ours, and I don’t pretend to that which 
1 have not got. They used to make wooden dolls with a 
peg through their joints, sc that they would move their 


ARMINELL. 


485 


limbs forward and backward, and that was all. Now there 
is another contrivance introduced, the ball and socket 
system for the joints, and dolls can now move their legs and 
arms in all directions, describe circles with them, do more 
with them than I can with mine. It is the same with the 
faculties of the aristocracy, there is a flexibility and a 
pliability in them that shows they are on the ball and socket 
system, and not upon the peg arrangement. I don’t mean 
to say that there are not to be found elsewhere faculties so 
variable and adaptable, but it is exceptional elsewhere ; 
among the upper classes the whole educational system is 
directed' towards making the men’al joints revolve in their 
sockets, and getting rid of all woodenness and pegishness. 
Look at Miss Inglett. She was ready to be just what you 
wanted — cook, nurse, butler, seamstress — and yet never lor 
a second has ceased to be what she is, a tip-top lady.” 

“ You talk; James, in a different way from what you used 
to talk.” 

“ I’ll tell you what stands in the way with us. Even if 
we be gifted with faculties on the ball and socket system, 
we are afraid of using them except as is allowed by fashion, 
and is supposed to be elegant. We are ever considering 
whether we shall not lose respect if we employ them in this 
way, set them at that -angle, fold them in such a manner, 
turn them about in such another. I know once,” continued 
Mr. Welsh, “ I had burst my boot over the toe, just before 
I went for an important interview with an editor. I cut a 
sorry figure in his presence, because I was considering the 
hole in my boot, and whether my stocking showed through. 
I put my foot under the chair as far back as I could, then 
drew it forward and set the other foot on it. Then I hid it 
behind my hat, tht n curled it over in an ungainly fashion, 
so as to expose only the sole ; aud all the while I was with 
the editor, I had no thought for what we were talking about; 
I could not take my attention from the hole in my boot. 


4 86 


ARMINELL. 


And it is the same with us who haven’t an all-round and 
complete culture — we are conscious of burst seams, and 
splits, and exposures, and are anxious to be screening them, 
and so are never at our ease.” 

When Mr. Welsh began to talk, he liked to talk on 
uninterruptedly. His wife knew this, and humoured him. 

“Connected with this subject, Tryphoena, is the way in 
which the aristocracy manage their trains.” 

“ Their trains, James ? ” 

“ Exactly — their trains or skirts. You know how that it 
is not possible for you to be in a crowd without having 
your skirts trodden on and ripped out of the gathers. 
There used to be a contrivance, Tryphoena, I remember you 
had it once, like a pair of bell-ropes. You ‘put your fingers 
into rings, and up came your train in a series of loops and 
folds, on the principle of the Venetian blind. But some- 
how you were always pulling up your skirt just too late, 
after if had been be-trampled and be-muddled. Now from 
what I have observed, the skirts and trains of the aristocracy 
are imbued with an imparted vitality from t’ eir persons, for 
all the world like the tail of a peacock, which it elevates 
when it steps about in the dirt. Their skirts shrink and 
rise of themselves, whenever a rude foot approaches, or 
they tread where the soil may bespatter.” 

“Now, really, James — how can human b ings lift their 
tails?” 

“ My dear, I am speaking figuratively. If you do not 
understand — remain in ignorance. There is, as the clown 
says in ‘Twelfth Night,’ no darkness like ignorance. I 
suppose you know, my dear, what it is to be pressed upon 
and trampled on by those just behind you in the social 
bail? Well, some persons manage so cleverly that they do 
not get their trains crumpled ; and others are in constant 
alarm and suspicion of everyone who approaches within a 
pace of theirs.” 


ARMINELL. 


487 


Welsh lighted a cigar. 

“ Don’t you mistake me and think that I have given up 
my opinions, Nothing of the sort. I notice the difference 
between the aristocracy and ourselves, but I do not say that 
I do not estimate the middle class above theirs. On the 
contrary, I think our order of the nobility is the most 
honourable. To us belongs the marquisate.” 

“James, how can you talk such nonsense?” 

“ It is a fact, Tryphoena, that the marquis or margrave 
takes, or rather took, his title from the debatable ground he 
held. He was the earl who watched the marches against 
the barbarians ; he protected civilization from overthrow. 
It was because he stood with drawn sword on the confines, 
armed cap-a-pie , that the counts and viscounts and the 
barons sat in clover at home and grew fat and wanton. 
We, Tryphoena, guard the march s, we occupy the debatable 
ground, and we have to be perpetually on the alert, to make 
blaze of beacons, blow cow’s-horns, and rattle drums at the 
least approach or signs of approach of barbfrism. Of 
course we are touchy, tenacious of our right, sensitive about 
our skirts, and must bluster and deal blows to protect them. 
We hold the banat, the military frontier between culture 
and savagery, and it is because of us that the noblemen 
and gentlemen of England can dwell at home at ease. Of 
course our hands* are rough with grip of the lance and 
sword, and our boots smell of the stable. Heigh-ho ! — here 
comes my Lady Fair — and not looking herself.” 

He stood up, and threw away his cigar into the grate and 
then went to the window and threw up the sash. Arminell 
entered in her bonnet ; her face was sad, and her eyes were 
red as though she had been crying. 

“ Miss Inglett ! I shall kill myself for having lit a cigar,” 
said Welsh, “ I' am vexed beyond measure. I did not 
think you were going to favour us with your company. As 
for Tryphoena, she loves smoke as a salamander loves fire. 


4.88 


ARMINELL. 


But— what is the matter? You remind me of a certain 
river I have read about in Bohn’s translation of ‘ Herodotus.’ 
The river flowed sweet from its source for many miles, but 
finally a tiny rill of bitterness entered it, and throughout the 
rest of its course to the sea the waters had lost their fresh- 
ness.” 

“ Not so, Mr. Welsh,” said Arminell with a smile. “ At 
least, I trust not. May I not rather have reached the 
point to which the tide mounts It is not bitterness that is 
in me, but just a smack of the salt of the mighty far-off 
ocean that runs up the estuary of life, and qualifies sooner 
or later the water of every soul ? ” 

“What has troubled you? I’m sure something has gone 
wrong.” 

“ I have been with Thomasine to see your nephew.” 

“ What — Jingles ! you should not have done that.” 

“ Thomasine had paid a visit to Mrs. Bankes, the land- 
lady of the house where Mrs. Saltren lodged before she 
married and departed; and the good woman told the girl 
something about Mr. Saltren that made me uneasy. So I 
went to see him.” 

“ You have acted inconsiderately,” said James Welsh. 

“ I do not say that it was a proper and prudent thing to 
do, and yet, under the circumstances, justifiable, and I 
have no doubt you will forgive me.” 

“You must make a full confession before I pronounce 
the absolution,” said the journalist. 

“ Thomasine goes occasionally to see the good woman of 
the lodgings and her servant, and she heard so sad an 
account of your nephew that she communicated it to me.” 

“ What is the matter with him ? I have not seen the 
cock-sparrow for three months, and what is more, I do not 
want to see him ; I can never forgive him for what he has 
done. ” 

“He knows how you regard him, and that is the reason 


ARMINELL. 489 

why he has not been to see you, and told you how he was 
situated.” 

“ But — what has happened ? Has he been run over at 
crossing ? He is fool enough for even that to befall him.” 

“ No, Mr. Welsh ; I will tell you all I know, and then you 
will think more kindly and judge more leniently of Mr. 
Saltren. The landlady spoke to Thomasine because she 
was uneasy about him, and she is a good-hearted creature. 
It seems that when Mrs. Saltren married, Mr. Saltren was 
left without any means whatever.” 

“ He had plenty of money. He sold Chillacot.” 

“He made over the whole proceeds to his mother. She 
has not left him a penny of it. From what I learn, she has 
given it to Captain Tubb to invest for her in a water-wheel 
and a pump.” 

“ Marianne is fool enough for anything — except to speak 
the truth. What next ? ” 

“After she had departed as Mrs. Tubb, your nephew 
was left absolutely without resources*. He did everything 
that lay in his power to obtain a situation, first in one 
capacity, then in another. He even — he even ” — Ar- 
minell’s voice quivered — “ he even offered himself as a shop 
assistant and was rejected. Disappointments, repeated day 
by day and week by week, told on his spirits and on his 
health. As he was without means, he frankly informed his 
hostess about his circumstances, and asked for leave to 
occupy an attic bedroom, promising to pay her directly he 
got employment. She did not like to turn him out, and I 
daresay she thought she would get her rent in the end from 
Mrs. Tubb, so she consented. But he has been living for 
many weeks on nothing but bread and a little thin tea 
without milk. He has sold his books and everything he 
could part with, and is now reduced to dire distress. He 
goes out every day in the desperate endeavour to find work, 
but his superior education, and his gentlemanly feelings 


490 


ARMINELL. 


stand in his way. Now his health is failing, he looks too 
delicate for work, and no one will have him on that account. 
He does not complain. He goes on trying, but his daily 
disappointments have broken his spirit. It does seem a 
hopeless venture for a man of good education and excep- 
tional abilities to find work in London.” 

“Sans interest,” added Welsh. “Of old, interest was in 
the hands of the upper classes. Now it is in the hands of 
the lower.” 

t( I heard a good deal of this from Thomasine,” continued 
Arminell. “ I could not bear it. I ran off to Bloomsbury to 
see Mrs. Bankes, and found her to be a very kind, feeling, 
and willing woman. She told me everything — how under- 
fed Mr. Saltren was, how thin and shabby his clothes had 
become, what a bad cough he had got, and how long it was 
since she had been paid for her lodging.” 

“ I made sure Mrs. Bankes would not omit to mention 
that.” 

“ She is a most Considerate woman. She said she had 
done him an egg of late, every morning, and charged him 
nothing for it, though eggs are at nine for a shilling, and he 
had had sixteen in all ; so that she was, as she said, beside 
the cost of his lodging, nearly two shillings to the bad 
through these eggs — but she is a good honest soul, she told 
me he had worn out the soles of his boots and could not 
afford a new pair, and they let in the wet.” Arminell 
stopped, she was choking. 

Presently she went on, “ Whilst we were talking, he came 
in at the house door, and I heard him cough ; and then he 
went upstairs, with his hand on the bannisters, dragging his 
tired feet and his springless weight up the steep steps. He 
halted at each landing ; he was weary and his breath failed. 
I listened till he had reached the very top of the house, and 
gone into his little attic-room where he sleeps, and reads, 
and eats, and dreams over his disappointments.” 


ARMINELL. 


49 1 


She stopped. She had clasped her hands on her lap, and 
was twisting, plaiting, and pulling her fingers. 

“ Then you came away to tell me,” said Mr. Welsh. 

“ No, I did not.” 

“ What next?” 

“ My heart was full. I went out into the lobby and stood 
there, and I began to cry. And then, all at once, I ran 
upstairs.” 

“ What — to his room ? ” 

“ Yes — I went after him, I could not help it. He was so 
utterly lonely and so unhappy. Mrs. Bankes said that no 
one ever came to see him, he had no friends. It is dread- 
ful to think of being alone in London for months without 
any one to speak to, that is, any one who feels for you, and 
knows about persons and things and places you have loved. 
I ran upstairs after him, and tapped at his door, and, dashed 
right in on him.” 

The colour rose and fell on her cheek. 

“ I should have been happy for the occasion to have a 
talk with him, only the circumstances were so sad. My 
heart came into my throat when I saw him, and I held out my 
hand to him — no, in honour bright — I held out both hands 
to him. He was surprised. I sat down there and made 
him tell me everything. He did not complain, he was very 
brave, but he had lost hope, and he plodded on as in a 
treadmill, trying for work because it was a duty to seek .it, 
not because he was sanguine of getting it. I do not know 
how long I was there ; I insisted on having tea with him, 
and quite a nice little tea we had, and a chop — no, two 
chops with it. I ordered them, and I would have them, 
and, of course, Mrs. Bankes brought up Wprcester sauce as 
well. Who ever knew a lodging-house without Worcester 
sauce ? I am obstinate when I take an idea into my head. 
You know that. He was quite happy, I do believe, 
happier than he has been for months, sitting there with me, 


492 


ARMINELL. 


taking tea, and milk in the tea, and talking about old times, 
and Orleigh — dear Orleigh ! — and my brother Giles and 
papa.” Her heart was beating fast, so fast that it stopped 
h r flow of words. 

Mr. Welsh said nothing, nor did Mrs. Welsh, who looked 
a: her husband questioningly, and then at Arminell. 

“ Once or twice I made him laugh, and the colour came 
again into his white face, and the brightness into his dull 
eyes. But when he laughed it brought on a fit of cough- 
ing.” 

“ Why did not the fellow come to me ? ” asked Welsh. 
“ I have no patience with his pride — it was nothing but 
pride which kept him away.” 

“ Self-respect, perhaps, and resolve to make a way for 
himself if possible. You had discouraged him from at- 
tempting literature, and he had lost all faith in politics. Be- 
sides, he kept away from this house because I was in it, and 
he felt he had no right to come here whilst I lived with you.” 

She began again to plait her fingers, and looked down at 
them with a little confusion in her face. Presently she 
looked at the miniature of the marine officer, Mrs. Welsh’s 
father, and said, with a laugh, “ Do you know, Mr. Welsh, 
that Mrs. Saltren imj osed on the landlady, and made her 
believe that she was going to marry an Admiral of the Blue. 
When Mrs. Bankes found out the truth, Mrs. Saltren, I mean 
Mrs. Tubb, said she had heard men-of-war so constantly 
spoken of as tubs, and nothing but tubs, and as her husband 
was a Tubb, she considered she had a right to speak of 
him as a naval officer. It is a shame to tell the story, 
but ” 

“ It is too good not to be told. Marianne all over.” 

“ And, Mr. Welsh, there was a doctor lodging on the 
first floor at Mrs. Bankes’, and he happened to see your 
nephew on the stairs, and hear him cough, so he made him 
step into his room and he examined his chest.” 


ARMINELL. 


493 


“ What did he say ? ” 

“ That there was constitutional delicacy, and that unless 
he went for a couple of winters to the south of Europe, and 
after that wintered at Penzance, Torquay, or Bournemouth, 
he would be a dead man. But, if he took proper care ot 
himself and lived well, drank cod-liver oil and old port, kept 
out of east winds and from getting wet, he might yet make 
old bones.” 

“That is out of the question,” said Welsh; “he shall 
have De Jongh’s cod-liver oil, and inhale carbolic acid, and 
wear Dr. Jaeger’s all-wool — to go to the south of Europe is 
impracticable.” 

“ Not at all.” 

“ My dear Miss Inglett, not another word. I will do all 
I can for the rascal. But I r ' ..uot afford that.” 

“ But I can.” 

“ I won’t allow it. I am very sorry for the boy, and will 
do my duty by him |ls his uncle ; but I can’t send him to 
the Riviera.” 

“ But it is settled that he is going.” 

“ How ? When ? ” 

“ Directly, and with me.” 

“ Nonsense, Miss Inglett.” 

“ And I have a house at Bournemouth.” 

“ That is true ; but ” 

“ But I am going to marry him, so as to be able to nurse 
him and carry him off to Bordighera, and give him De 
Jongh’s cod-liver oil myself.” 

“ Miss Inglett, in reason ! ” 

“ It is settled. I settled it. I have paid Mrs. Bankes 
for the eggs and all the rest. When we are off together we 
can talk at our leisure about Orleigh.” 


CHAPTER LII. 


ON DIPPERS. 

Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his treatise on the composition 
of a picture, lays down as a necessity that a patch of blue 
sky should be introduced into every painting, an opening 
through which the eye may escape out of the constraint and 
gloom of the canvas. Tf the subject be a dungeon, in one 
corner must be a window through which the eye can mount 
to heaven ; if a forest, there must be a gap in the foliage 
through which the sun may strike and the free air blow. It 
a landscape under a grey canopy, or a storm at sea under 
rolling thunder clouds, there must be a rift somewhere 
through which the upper azure gleams ; otherwise the 
picture oppresses and the frame cramps, For this reason, 
the preceding chapter was entitled “ A Patch of Blue Sky,” 
for in that chapter a small opening was made quite in a 
corner, into that serene and super-terrestrial, that ethereal 
and sublime realm — matrimony. 

For a good many chapters our hero and heroine have 
been in a poor way, inhaling London smoke, without sun- 
shine enlivening their existences. From Orleigh Park to 
Shepherd’s Bush, and lrom the elastic atmosphere of the 
country to the fogs of the metropolis, is a change which, 
considering the altered conditions of both — Jingles with >ut 
a situation, living on bread and thin tea, and Armin 11 


ARMINELL. 


495 


without a home, living with third-rate people — was depress- 
ing to both, and the picture was overcharged with shadows. 
Therefore a little glimpse has been given into that heaven 
to which all youthful and inexperienced novel-readers 
aspire. 

Sir Joshua Reynolds, moreover, insists on a proper 
balance of lights and shadows. He says that it is false art 
to accumulate dark spots on one side of a picture without 
relieving them with a corresponding number of luminous 
foci on the other. Now in this story the reader has been 
given three dcatns. Therefore, there must needs be the 
same number of marriages to produce equilibrium. Accord- 
ingly, over against the dark points of Archelaus Tubb, Lord 
Lamerton, and Captain Saltren, we set off the bright com- 
binations of Samuel and Joan, of Captain Tubb and 
Marianne, and of Arminell and Jingles. These are not, it 
is true, spots of transcendent brilliancy, double stars of the 
first order, but of subdued and chastened effulgence. Not 
many roses crowned the hymeneal altar of Sam Ceely, nor 
would an impassioned epithalamium suit the nuptials of 
Mrs. Saltren, just recovered from a touch of paralysis. Nor 
will the beaker of ecstatic love brim over at the union of 
Arminell and Giles Saltren, seeing that it is largely filled 
with De Jongh’s cod-liver oil. When a cook has over-salted 
the soup, he mixes white sugar with it, and this neutralises 
the brine and gives the soup a mellowness, and velvety 
softness to the palate. On the same principle, having put 
too many tears into this tale, I am shaking in the hymeneal 
sugar in just proportions. 

1 know very well I am letting the reader into the secrets 
of construction, telling the tricks of the trade, but as this 
narrative is written for instruction as well as for amusement, 
I do not scruple thus to indicate one of the principles ot the 
art of novel writing ; and I do this with purpose, to gain 
the favour of the reader, who I fear is a little ruffled and 


ARMINBLL. 


496 

resentful, because I do not give a full and particular account 
of the marriage. But it really hardly merited such an 
account, it was celebrated so quietly — without choral song 
and train of bride’s-maids, and without peal of bells. I am 
so much afraid that by omitting to make a point of the 
marriage I may offend my readers that I have let them into 
one of the secrets of the construction of a plot. 

Among poor people a bottle of lemon-drops is set on the 
table, and the children are given bread to eat. Those little 
ones whose conduct has been indifferent are allowed only 
bread and point for a meal, but those who have behaved 
well are permitted to enjoy bread and rub. To their imagi- 
nations some of the sweetness of the lollipops penetrates 
the glass and adheres to their slices. 

A novel is the intellectual meal of a good many readers, 
and it begins with bread and point, and is expected to end 
with bread and rub at the acidulated drops of connubial 
felicity. Usually the reader has to consume a great deal of 
bread and point and is only allowed bread and rub in 
final chapters. In this story, however, I have been 
generous, I have allowed of three little frettings at the bottle 
instead — indeed, instead of keeping one tantalising bottle 
before the eyes of the reader, I have set three on the table 
in front of him. 

That I have transgressed the rule which requires the 
marriage of hero and heroine to be at the end of the book, 
in the very last chapter, I freely admit ; but I have done 
this on purpose, and I have, for the same purpose, most 
slyly slipped in the marriage, or rather left it to the imagi- 
nation, between the end of Chapter LI. and the beginning of 
Chapter L1I. And what do you suppose is my reason ? It 
is, that I want to dodge the dippers. The dippers are those 
readers who are only by an euphemism called readers. 
They stand by the course of a story, and pop a beak down 
into it eyery now and then, and bring up something from 


ARMINELL. 


497 


\ 


the current, and then fly away pretending that they have 
read the whole story. The dipper generally plunges the 
bill into the first chapter, then dips into the last of the hree 
volumes, and then again once or twice in the mid-stream of 
the tale. 

These dippers are gorgeous creatures, arrayed in gold and 
azure, with bejewelled necks and wings and crowns. But 
in one matter they differ from all other fowl — they have no 
gizzards. Other birds, notably those of the barn door, when 
they eat pass their food through a pair of internal grind- 
stones, and thoroughly digest and assimilate it. The 
dippers, being devoid of this organ, neither digest nor 
assimilate anything. They take nothing into them for the 
purpose of nutrition, but for the taste it leaves on their 
tongues. Consequently, the food they like best is not that 
which invigorates, but that which is high flavoured. 

A dipper may seem very small game at which to fire a 
shot, but the dippers are the special aversion of novel 
writers. These latter have laboured to please, perhaps to 
instruct ; they have worked with their pens till their fingers 
are cramped, and their brains bemuzzed, and they see the 
fruit of conscientious toil treated as a bird treats a nectarine 
— pecked at and spoiled, not eaten. 

But I have headed this chapter “ On Dippers,” not be- 
cause I intended to blaze at those little frivolous, foolish 
birds who dip into my story and let all they scoop up dribble 
from their beaks again, but because I have another class of 
dippers in my eye, about whom I have still sharper words to 
say. And see ! — one of this order has unexpectedly dropped 
in on the Welshes — and that is Mrs. Cribbage. 

The Reverend Mrs. Cribbage was not one of the king- 
fishers, but was a dipper of the cormorant or skua genus. 
She was not one to stand by the stream of a story and dip 
in that, but in the sea of life, and seek in that for savoury 
meat over which to snap the bill, and smack the tongue, and 


ARMINELL. 


498 

turn up the eyes, and distend the jaw-pouches. The dippers 
of this order congregate on a rock above the crystal tide and 
chatter with their beaks, whilst their eyes pierce the liquid 
depths. They have no perceptions of the beauty of colour 
in the water, no admiration for its limpidity. They inhale 
with relish none of the ozone that wafts over it — their eyes 
explore for blubber, for uproot d weed, for moll'usks that 
have been bruised, for dead fish, for crustaceans that have 
lost limbs, for empty shells invaded by parasites, for the 
scum, and the waste, and the wreckage, in the mighty 
storm-tossed ocean of life. 

Aristotle, in his ‘ History of Animals/ says that most fish 
avoid what is putrescent ; but the taste of the dippers is 
other than that of the fish. The dippers have no perception 
and liking for the freshness and fragrance of the sea, but 
have vastly keen noses for carrion. The suffering whiting, 
the crushed nautilus, the disabled shrimp, are pounced on 
with avidity, and the great penguin-pouch expands under 
the beak like a Gladstone bag full of the most varied forms 
of misery, of sorrow and of nastiness. 

The skua is a dipper akin to, but more active than the 
wary cormorant and the clumsy auk. It is a lively bird, and 
darts on nimble wing over the sea, and when it perceives a 
glutted dipper in flight, it dives under it, strikes it on the 
breast, and makes it disgorge ; whereupon it seizes the prey 
as it falls, for itself. There are skuas as well as cormorants 
about the coasts of the great social ocean, and there are 
birds with the voracity of the cormorant and the quickness 
and adoitness of the skua — of such was Mrs. Cribbage. It 
was part of her cleverness in getting the food she required 
to come with a whisk and blow at those who least expected 
her ; and such was her visit or swoop on the Welshes. 

Unfortunately for her, James Welsh was at home when she 
swept in, and he was quite able to hold his own before her. 

“ My dear,” said he to his wife, “ I think I hear the cook 


ARMINELL. 


499 


squealing. She is in an epileptic fit. You had better go 
down into the kitchen and remain below as long as the fit 
lasts. Get the slavey to sit on her feet, and you hold her 
head. I will remain at the service of Mrs. Cribbage. I 
am sure she will excuse you. We have an epileptic cook, 
ma’am — not a bad cook when out of her fits.” 

“ I am Mrs. Cribbage,” said the visitor, “ the wife of the 
Rector of Orleigh. We have not had the pleasure of meeting 
before, but I know your sister, Mrs. Tubb, very well ; she 
is a parishioner and the wife of one of our Sunday-school 
teachers. Of course I know about you, Mr. Welsh, though 
you may not know me.” 

“ I have heard a good deal about you, ma’am.” 

“ Through whom ? ” asked the lady eagerly. 

“ Through my nephew.” 

“ I have come to break to you some sad news about your 
sister. Poor thing, she had a first seizure on the death of 
her first husband, and she had a second immediately after 
her return to Orleigh as a bride. It was kept quiet. I was 
not told of it, nor was my husband sent for. Now a third 
has ensued which has bereft her of speech, and it is feared 
will end fatally. I have come to town for some purchases 
and on a visit to friends, and I thought it would be kind and 
wise if I came to see you and tell you what I knew.” 

“ Very kind indeed, ma’am.” 

“ I promised Captain Tubb that I would do so; he is not 
a great hand at letter writing, and I said that I could explain 
the circumstances so much better by word of mouth than 
he could with the pen. The case, I fear, is serious. She 
cannot speak.” 

“ It must indeed be serious, if Marianne can’t speak,” ob- 
served Welsh dryly; “ I’ll run down to Orleigh to-morrow.” 

“ How is your nephew? Mrs. Tubb hadn’t heard of him 
for three or four months. I dare say anxiety about him has 
brought on the seizure.” 


500 


ARMINELL. 


“ My late nephew ? ” Welsh heaved a sigh. “ Poor fellow, 
he is gone. He always was delicate.” 

“ Gone ! — ” 

“ Yes — to a warm place.” 

“ It is not for us to judge,” said Mrs. Cribbage, sternly. 

“Well, perhaps not,” answered Welsh; “but between 
you and me, ma’am, for 'what else was he fit ? ” 

“I always considered that he gave himself airs, and I 
had an impression that he indulged in free-thinking. Still, 
he was not positively vicious. Nothing was proved against 
his morals.” 

“ Others go to a warm place that shall be nameless, be- 
sides those who are positively vicious.” 

“ Well,” said Mrs. Cribbage, “ that is true, sadly true. 
And now, to change the topic — how is Miss Inglett ? Is 
she still with you ? ” 

“Miss Inglett?” Welsh’s eyes twinkled. He knew 
what the woman had come to his place for. It was not out 
of kindness to communicate to him his sister’s condition. 
He felt the dig of the skua’s beak in his chest. 

“ Oh yes, we know all about it. Marianne Tubb talked 
before she had the stroke and lost the power of speech. 
You must not suppose, Mr. Welsh, that we are taken in and 
believe that the Honourable Arminell Inglett died as has 
been represented, through the shock caused by her father’s 
fatal fall.” 

“Ah! I remember seeing something "about it in the 
oapers. She died, did she ? ” 

“ No, no, Mr. Welsh, that will not do. Your sister let 
the cat out of the bag. She said that Miss Inglett was 
lodging here with you ; and very boastful Mr. Tubb was 
about it, and much talk did it occasion in Orleigh. Some 
people would not believe it, they said that Marianne Saltren 
had been a liar, and Marianne Tubb was no better. How- 
ever, others say that there is something in it. So, as I am 


ARMINELL. 50I 

come to town, I thought I would just run here and enquire, 
and see Miss Inglett myself.” 

“ We have had an Inglett here, certainly,” answered 
Welsh, composedly, “ and very decent pastry she made. 
She had a light hand.” 

“ I do not comprehend.” 

“ Are you in want of a cook, a nursemaid, or parlour 
maid? She was a handy girl, and Mrs. Welsh would be 
happy to give her a good character — a true and honest one, 
no reading between the lines, no disguising of defects. 
She did not drink, was not a lie-abed, and was clean in her 
work and person. I won’t say whether she put her fingers 
into the sugar, because I don’t know, and Mrs. Welsh 
keeps the preserves and candied fruit locked up in the side- 
board.” 

“ I do not understand,” said Mrs. Cribbage, gazing per 
plexedly at Mr. Welsh’s imperturbable face. 

“ She was a sort of general hand with us,” explained 
Welsh, “was that girl Inglett. We were sorry to lose her 
but she thought to better herself, and we do not give high 
wages. We can’t afford to pay more than twelve pounds, 
and no beer. But the maid has the tea-leaves and dripping. 
That is — she had ; but now that we have a cook, the cook 
arrogates the dripping to herself. We bear the young 
woman no grudge for leaving us. It is the way with girls, 
they will always be on the move, and if they can better 
themselves by moving, why not ? What wages do you pay, 
ma’am ? And how about perquisites ? ” 

“You had a general servant named Inglett ? ” 

“ Yes, and our present housemaid is named Budge. 
Our cook is Mrs. Winter. The last cook we had drank, 
and ran up a ladder. It took several policemen to get her 
down. The ladder was of extraordinary height. It stood 
in a builder’s yard It was impossible for us to retain the 
woman after that. She had risen into notoriety. Then, 


5°2 


ARMINELL. 


for awhile, the girl Inglett cooked for us ; she was not 
brought up to it, had never passed through her apprentice- 
ship as kitchen-maid, but some women take to cooking as 
poets take to verses — naturally.” 

“ That is true,” said Mrs. Cribbage. Her mouth was 
gradually falling at the corners. She had expected to fish 
up a very queer and unpleasant bit of scandal, and, to her 
disappointment, began to see that she had spooned up 
cl- an water in her beak. 

“ Mrs. Welsh, seeing her abilities, may have advised the 
girl Inglett to take a kitchen-maid’s place — I cannot say. 
Has she applied to you for such a situation in your house, 
ma’am ? If so, I am sure Mrs. Welsh can confidently re- 
commend her.” 

“ We thought,” said Mrs. Cribbage, in a tone of discour- 
agement, “that is to say, Mrs. Tubb said most positively 
that — that the Honourable Arminell Inglett, daughter of 
Lord Lamerton, was not dead, but was lodging with 
you. And you really had a servant of the name of 
Inglett ? " 

“ Certainly, a general, as I said — and now you mention 
if^ it dees seem queer that she should have had such an 
ar stocratic name, but I daresay she assumed it, as actresses 

o." 

“I was led by Marianne Tubb to suppose — ” 

“ Was not that like Marianne ! ” Mr. Welsh went into a 
fit of laughter. : Mrs. Cribbage, with a ghastly smile, ad- 
mitted that it was like Marianne Tubb, who was certainly 
given to boasting and romancing. However, she added, 
charitably — 

“ Really, it almost seems a judgment on her.” 

“ What does ? ” 

“ The stroke. It was too bad of her to make us suppose 
that the Honourable Arminell Inglett had come to live in 
such a quarter as this. Then you really believe, Mr. Welsh, 


ARMINELL. 503 

that Lord Lamerton’s daughter died of the shock, when she 
heard of her father’s premature death ? ” 

“ I saw it so stated in the papers, and they are generally 
well informed. What sort of a person was she ? I ask 
you, as the Rector’s wife, was she worldly ? Was she at 
all prepared for the great change?” 

Mrs. Cribbage shook her head. 

“ I was afraid it was so,” said Welsh solemnly. “ Then 
I should not be at all surprised if she also had gone to the 
same warm place as my poor nephew.” 

“ It is not for us to judge,” said Mrs. Cribbage gravely ; 
“ still, if it be permitted us to look beyond the veil, I would 
not say but that she had. She was barely civil to me, once 
she was positively rude. Yes — I have no doubt that she 
also has gone — gone — ” 

“ To the same warm place,” added Welsh. 


CHAPTER Till. 


ALLAH’S SLIPPER. 

Having occupied an entire chapter with dippers, it may 
seem to the reader to be acting in excess of what is just to 
revert in the ensuing chapter to the ^me topic ; but if we 
mention dippers again, it is in another sense altogether. 

In an oriental talc, a sultan was unable to conceive how 
that a thousand days cr uld seem to pass as a minute, or a 
minute be expanded into a thousand days. Then a 
magician bade a pail of water be brought into the royal 
presence, and invited the sultan to plunge his head into it. 
He did so, and at once found himself translated to a strange 
country where he was destitute of the means of life, and 
was forced to support existence by hard labour as a porter. 
He married a wife, and became the father of seven children, 
after which his wife died, and as he was oppressed with old 
age and poverty, he plunged into a river to finish his woes, 
when — up came his head out of the pail of water. He 
stormed at the magician for having given him such a life of 
wretchedness. “ But, sire,” said the magician, “ your 
august head has been under water precisely three seconds.” 

Now I do not mean to say that this story is applicable to 
my hero and heroine in all its parts. I do not mean that 
their history and that of the sultan fit, when one is applied 
to the other, as do the triangles a b c and d e f in the 


ARMINELL. 


5°5 


fourth proposition of the First Book of Euclid, but only 
that there is a resemblance. Both Giles Saltren and Armi- 
nell had, as the expression goes, got their heads under 
water, and having got them there, found themselves begin- 
ning a new career, in a fresh place of existence, with fresh 
experiences to make and connections to form. The past 
was to both cut away as if it had never been, and, unlike 
this sultan, there was no prospect of their getting their 
heads up again into their former life. They must, there- 
fore, make the best they could of that new life in which 
they found themselves ; and, perhaps, Arminell acted sen- 
sibly in resolving that they should begin it together. 

If Arminell had settled into her house at Bournemouth, 
and kept her pony-carriage and appeared to be unstraitened 
in circumstances, the residents of Bournemouth would, in 
all probability, have asked who this Miss Inglett was, and 
have turned up the, name in the Red Books, and pushed 
enquiries which could with difficulty have been evaded ; 
but when she set up her establishment as Mrs. Saltren, the 
case was altered ; for the patronymic does not occur in the 
“Peerage” or in “Burke’s Landed Gentry.” It was a 
name to baffle enquiry,- whereas Inglett w ? as calculated to 
provoke it. It is true that Arminell might have changed 
her maiden name without altering her condition, but this 
she was reluctant to do. 

In Gervase of Tilbury’s “ Otia Imperalia ” is an account 
of a remarkable event that took place in England in the 
reign of Henry II. One day an anchor descended out of 
the clouds and grappled the earth, immediately followed by 
a man who swarmed down the cable and disv ngage.d the 
anchor, whereupon man and anchor were drawn up again 
into the clouds. 

Similar events occur at the present day. People, not 
men alone, but women, whole families, come down on us out 
of the clouds, and move about on the earth in our midst. 


5°6 


ARMINELL. 


We know neither whence they come, nor anything about 
their antecedents. They talk and eat and drink like the 
rest of us, and are sometimes very agreeable to converse 
with, and take infinite pains to make themselves popular. 
Nevertheless, we regard them with suspicion. We are never 
sure that they will be with us for long. Some day they 
will release the anchor and go up with a whisk above the 
clouds into the fog-land whence they fell. 

There are certain times of the year when meteoric stones 
descend, and there are certain belts on the surface of the 
earth on which they chiefly tumble. So is it with these 
peop’e who come down on us out of the clouds. They 
usually fall into watering-places, and winter-quarters, and 
always drop down in the season at these resorts. Rarely do 
they descend into quiet country towns or rural districts 
among the autochthones, parsonic and squirarchical. We 
come on them abroad, we become acquaintances, we sit 
together at the opera, organize picnics together, take coffee 
at one table in the gardens where the band plays, yet we 
never know whence they have come and whither they will 
go. When we are at the sea-side with our family we meet with 
another family, the father and mother respectable, the young 
men handsome and polite, the girls aesthetic, and with — 
oh, such eyes ! The young people soon strike up an in- 
timacy, go boating, shrimping, nutting together ; but we, 
the parents, have seen the intimacy thicken with some 
uneasiness, and do not like to' see our son hang about the 
handsomest of the girls, or the most irreproachable of the 
young men so assiduous in his attentions to our daughter. 
Then we begin to institute enquiries, but learn nothing. 
Nobody ever heard of these people before. Nobody ever 
saw them before. Nobody knows where they made their 
money — yet money they must have, for the girls dress 
charmingly, and you cannot dress charmingly by the sea- 
side for nothing. 


ARM I NELL. 


5°7 


Then, all at once, when these people become aware 
that you are pushing enquiries, the blade of the anchor 
wriggles out of the sand, and up they all go, the young men 
waving their straw hats, and the girls casting sad glances 
out of their splendid eyes, and the old people silent about 
prosecuting the acquaintance elsewhere. 

But — it must be admitted that these people who come 
down out of the clouds do not for the most part form as 
complete a family as that just spoken of. Either the mon- 
sieur or the madame is deficient, and we never know ex- 
actly where- he or she is, whether above the clouds or under 
the earth. 

No doubt that at Bournemouth, as at other sea-side 
places, persons appear at the beginning of the season, cast 
anchor for a while, and no one troubles himself about their 
antecedents, because they are supposed to be there for the 
season only ; but were a young lady to anchor herself 
firmly, to buy a house and become* a permanent resident, 
especially if she were pretty and rich, do you suppose that 
the Bournemouth residents would not examine the cable of 
her anchor, to see if the government thread be woven into 
it, and the anchor to discover the maker’s stamp ? Do you 
not suppose that they would set their telescopes and opera- 
glasses to work to discover out of what star the rope 
descended ? 

Arminell knew this. She brought with her out of her 
old world that caution which bade her enquire who a person 
was before she consulted with that person ; and she was 
quite sure that wherever she set up her tent, there questions 
would be asked concerning her. She knew that there were 
Mrs. Cribbages everywhere, and that she would have to be 
on her guard against them. But her difficulties about 
keeping her secret were materially diminished by marriage. 

The ceremony took place quietly, and no announcement 
of it was made in the limes , the Queen , and the country 


ARMINELL. 


5°S 

papers. Immediately after it, she and Giles departed for 
Algiers. That was the warm place of which Mr. Welsh 
had spoken to Mrs. Cribbage. They went to Algiers, in- 
stead of Bordighera'and Mentone, because Saltren had 
been to the Riviera before, and might be recognised. 

Arminell had constituted herself the nurse of Jingles 
She was the nurse not only of a sick body, but of an infirm 
soul. His morbid sensitiveness was in part constitutional, 
and due to his delicacy, but it had been fostered and been 
ripened by the fa'seness of the position in which he had 
been placed. Arminell had recovered her elasticity sooner 
than had he ; but then she had not been reduced to the 
same distress. Both had been humbled, but the humilia- 
tions he had undergone had been more numerous, more 
persistent than hers. She, at her moral rebound, had 
adapted herself to her situation and had done well in every 
capacity ; he had not been able to find any situation in 
which he could show his powers. 

The body reacts on the moral nature more than we sup- 
pose, or allow for in others. We call those ill-tempered 
who are in fact disordered in liver and not in heart, and we 
consider those to be peppery who in reality are only irrit- 
able because they have gout flying about their joints. The 
morbidness of Jingles was largely due to his delicacy of 
lung, and with De Jongh’s cod-liver oil would probably in 
time disappear. 

When a man battles a way for himself into a position not 
his by right of birth, he acquires^ a tough skin. Siegfried, 
the Dragon-slayer, goes by the name of the Horny Siegfried 
because, by bathing in the dragon’s blood, he toughened 
his hide — only between his shoulders, where a linden-leaf 
fell whilst he was bathing, could he be made to feel. 

The successful men who have fought dragons and cap- 
tured their guarded treasures are thick-skinned, impervious 
to hints, ridicule, remonstrances — you cannot pinch them, 


ARMINELL. 


509 


scratch them, prick them, unless you discover the one 
vulnerable point. But Saltren had fought no dragons, only 
his own shadow, and his skin was as thin as the inner film 
of r L n egg — highly sensitive, and puckering at a breath. 
His vanity had been broken away, but his skin had not 
been rendered more callous thereby. Formerly he was in 
perpetual dudgeon because he imagined slights that were 
never offered. He still imagined slights, but instead of 
becoming angry at them became depressed. 

As his health improved in the dry, salubrious air of 
North Africa, he began to interest himself in the antiquities, 
to explore ruins, to copy inscriptions, and so forgot himself 
in archaeological pursuits. Arminell encouraged him to 
prosecute these subjects, and he became more enthusiastic 
on them ; he regretted that the increasing heat would send 
him to Europe. However, on his arrival at Bournemouth, 
he found occupation in arranging his library and setting out 
his antiquities. Then he wrote an account of some ex- 
plorations he had among the megalithic monuments near 
Constantine for a scientific journal, and this attracted 
attention, and led to correspondence, and to the article 
being reprinted with additions, and to a dispute as to the 
resemblances and dissimilarities between the Constantine 
monuments and the so-called Druidical remains in Britain. 

The following winter Saltren was again at Algiers, and 
resumed his explorations with assiduity, spent much time in 
planning, sketching, digging, and formed a theory of his 
own relative to megalithic monuments contrary to that of 
Mr. Fergusson, whom he resolved to attack and crush. 
When summer came, at his particular desire, Arminell and 
he visited Denmark and Norway, where he examined such 
stone monuments as belonged to a prehistoric period, and 
then went with her into Brittany. 

As he became known as an antiquary, his society was 
sought by men of like tastes, and so he came to have a 


ARMINELL. 


510 

little circle of acquaintances, which tended to widen, and 
as those who came to know him through prehistoric rude 
stone monuments fell in love with his charming young 
wife, they insisted on their womankind calling and knowing 
her also. In vain did the ladies ask, “ But, who was she?” 
They were crushed with the reply, “ My dears, what does it 
matter what she was, she is the wife of one of our first 
authorities on comparative megalithology.” So, by degrees, 
the young couple formed a coterie about themselves, and 
were no longer solitary and feeling as if they were outcasts. 

Now and then Mr. Welsh ran down to Bournemouth and 
spent a day with them, and sometimes Mrs. Welsh brought 
the baby ; but the Welshes were no assistance to them in 
social matters. The Welsh circle was of a different style of 
mind and manner and interest from that which forced 
round the Saltrens. It was not a circle which could wax 
excited over anything prehistoric, it was so completely 
engrossed in the present. 

But the Welshes were always received with the utmost 
warmth and kindness by Arminell, who could not forget 
what she owed to them, and harboured for the Radical 
journalist an affection quite special, mixed with great re- 
spect. . She knew the thorough goodness of the man, and 
she delighted in his smartness. 

“ Look here, Tryphoena,” said James Welsh one day to 
his wife ; “ do you remember what I said to you about 
aristocrats and their trains ? There is something else I will 
tell you. Once upon a time, say the Mussulmans, Allah, 
sitting on his throne in paradise, dropped the slipper off his 
foot, and it fell down into hell. Then he called to Adam, 
and bade him go and fetch it. ‘ What ! ’ exclaimed Adam, 
‘ shall I, who am made in the likeness of God, descend to 
the place of devils? God forbid ! ’ Then Allah ordered 
Abraham to go after his slipper. ‘ Shall I go down into 
hell? I who am the friend of God ! Far be it from me ! ' 


ARMINELL. 


5i J 

was his reply. Then Allah turned to Moses, and he ex- 
claimed, ‘ What ! shall I, who am the law-giver of God, I 
who led the people out of the brick-kilns, shall I descend to 
the fu?liace ? Away with the thought ! * And David cried, 
when Allah turned to him, ‘ Nay, but I am the psalmist of 
God, press we not to go where demons yell discords/ And 
Isaiah had also an objection to go, for he said, ‘ I am the 
prophet of God.’ Then Allah turned to Mahomet, and 
said, ‘Wilt thou go after my slipper?’ And Mahomet 
answered, ‘ I go at once, 1 am the servant of God.’ Where- 
upon Allah exclaimed, ‘ Thou only art worthy to sit on my 
throne. All the rest are a parcel of cads ’ — or words to 
that effect.” 

“ But, James, what has this to do with the aristocracy?” 

“ Be silent, Tryphoena^and listen. You and I, and all 
those who have clambered up the steps of the social heaven, 
are mightily tenacious of our places, and resent the slightest 
suggestion made to us to step below. We clutch at our 
seats and insist on every prerogative and privilege that 
attaches to it. Quite right that it should be so. We value 
the place we have gained, because it has cost us so much 
effort to attain it, and because we have to balance ourselves 
and cling so tight to keep ourselves from sliding down. 
But it is different with those who have been born and 
brought up on the footstool of the throne. They don't 
want a pat of cobblers’-wax to keep them firm on their seat, 
and they are not scrupulous about descending after Allah’s 
shoe wherever it may have fallen. If they go down to 
hell they don’t get smoked. They don’t find anyone dis- 
puting their seats when they return. They can go and 
come, and we must sit and cling. That makes a difference. 
There is something of Allah everywhere, only it wants fetch- 
ing up. Just see what has been made of that girl, 
Thomasine Kite. If ever there was a wilful, unruly 
creature, fated to go to the devil, it was she. And what 


512 


ARMINELL. 


could you do with her? Nothing. You sat on a step just 
above her, and were not able to stoop for fear of toppling 
over. She is not the same girl now, and I hear she is going 
to be married to a sergeant of the coastguard. Sh ; is a 
well-conducted woman, passionately attached to her mistress, 
and no wonder, — Arminell has brought up Allah’s slipper 
out of her. Look again at Jingles ! I never had any 
opinion of him— a conceited, morbid monkey — and I could 
have done nothing with him ; I lack the tact or whatever it 
is that is needful. But he is changed also, unobtrusive, 
self-respecting, learned, and modest — she has brought up 
Allah’s slipper out of him.” 

“You are a weather-cock, James. At one time you were 
all against the aristocracy, and now no one can do anything 
right unless he has blue blood in him. And yet — you call 
yourself a Radical.” 

“ So I am — a Radical still,” said Welsh. “ I have not 
altered my opinions, but my mode of procedure. I do not 
want to pull the aristocracy down, but to pull all society up 
to it. I don’t say that no one can fetch up Allah’s slipper 
but a born gentleman, but I do say that no one who has 
not attained to the aristocratic ease in a superior position, is 
likely to descend to seek Allah’s slipper, wherever it is to 
be found. I may have been wrong in thinking the best way 
of advancing society was by pinching the calves of those 
who sat above me, so as to make their seat intolerable, in- 
stead of lending a hand to help up those below to a share 
of my stool. Do you understand me, old woman ? ” 

“I do not think I do. You have such a figurative 
method of speaking, James.” 


CHAPTER LIV. 


MEGALITH IC. 

One bright summer day, when the sea was still and blue as 
the nemophyla, and twinkling as if strewn with diamond 
dust, Arminell was in her garden, with an apron on, gloves 
over her hands, a basket on her arm, and scissors for 
flowers. 

At the end of the garden, partly screened by rhodo- 
dendrons, was a summer-house, and outside it some lumps 
of plaster of Paris, pots of oil-paint, and slabs of slate, 
smeared with mortar. Occasionally the door of the pavilion 
opened, and a man issued from it wearing a brown-holland 
blouse, and on his head a paper cap. Particles and splashes 
of plaster marked his face, especially about the nose, where 
he had rubbed with a white finger. 

“ I will have it all cleaned away, Giles,” said Arminell. 
“ How are you getting on with the models ? ” 

“Very well, only the plaster does not set as fast as I 
could w’ish. When I have got the dolmens of Gozo and 
Constantine, of Lock Mariaker and Madron to sca'e, side 
by side*, the most prejudiced persons must agree that the 
similarity of construction is strong evidence of identity of 
origin. I can show on my map of megalithic monuments 
where the stream of dolmen builders travelled, how that it 
>et from Asia, along the margin of the Baltic, and then 


ARMINELL. 


branched north over Britain, and south over Gaul. I can 
prove conclusively that they were not Gauls and Kelts. 
Just come and look at my cromlechs and dolmens in the 
rough. The resemblance saute aux yeux. We must estab- 
lish their geographical distribution, and then compare their 
points of similarity and dis ” 

“ Please, ma’am, a lady and a young gentleman are in the 
drawing-room, and want to see you.” 

“ What names ? ” 

“ They gave none, ma’am.” 

Arminell removed her apron, took off her gloves, and 
handed them and the basket to the maid, then went to- 
wards the drawing-room glass door opening upon the 
garden. 

“Some people come to collect for the Jubilee,” said 
Arminell aside to her husband, as she passed. 

“ I heard they were about.” 

In a t other moment, however, Saltren, who was engaged 
on Ids models of prehistoric rude stone monuments, heard 
a cry, and returning to the door of his laboratory, saw 
Arminell in the arms of an old lady, and at the same 

moment recognised her, and also the boy at her side. 

Then, without removing his blouse or his paper cap, he ran 
also across the garden, to welcome Lady Lamerton and his 
old pupil, Giles. 

I do not think I could better illustrate the fact ol the 
transformation that had been effected in Jingles, than by 
mentioning this incident. Can you — I cannot — conceive 
of Mr. Jingles as tutor at Orleigh Park, allowing himself to 
be seen smudged with plaster, in a paper cap, with a nose 
of chalky whiteness ? On the present occasion he was so 

excited, so pleased to see dear Lady Lamerton and Giles 

again, that he forgot all about his own personal appearance, 
and even about the quoit of the Madron cromlech he was 
then modelling to scale. 


ARMINELL. 


5 T 5 


Lady Lamerton had come to see Arminell, as Arminell 
could not visit her ; and this was her first visit. She had 
not ventured before, because she did not think it prudent, 
not k^cause her heart did not draw her to Arminell. 

The most contradictory reports had circulated relative to 
the girl. Some had asserted that she was dead, others de- 
clared she was alive. Then it was said she was lodging in 
London, under an assumed name, and had made herself 
notorious by her advocacy of woman’s rights, divided skirts, 
and social democracy. It was asserted that she had be- 
come a platform orator and a writer under the direction of 
that revolutionist, James Welsh. This was again denied, 
and said to rest on a mistake arising from James Welsh 
having had a general servant named Inglett. After a 
twelvemonth gossip ceased, for interest was no longer taken 
in a person who was no more seen, and who probably was 
dead. 

And what does it matter, argued the cynical, whether she 
be dead or alive, as she is no more in society ? We know- 
nothing of those who do not appear, who have not been 
presented, who are not danced before our eyes. 

In mediaeval times there were oubliettes in all castles, and 
inconvenient persons were let fall down them to disappear 
for ever. Did they break their necks in falling ? Or did 
they linger on, fed on bread and water, and languish for 
years ? What did it matter ? They were practically dead 
when the trap-door closed over their heads. 

Every aristocratic, every gentle family has now what was 
anciently the prerogative of the mightiest barons only. 
Every family is encumbered with its awkward and trouble- 
some members who must be dropped somewhere. 

The Honourable Arminell Inglett had gone down an 
oubliette, but whether it were the family vault or a social 
limbo mattered nothing. We are too wise to ask about her. 
We never do anything inconsistent with good taste. We 


ARMINELL. 


5 l6 

let sleeping dogs lie, and don’jt push enquiries about dropped 
relatives. 

When we are invited to dine at my lord’s, we do not peep 
to see if the broken meats and the half-finished bottles?- be 
tumbled down under the feet to be mumbled and drained 
by the forgotten ones beneath. When we dance at my 
lady’s Christmas ball, in the state ball-room, we know very 
well that below it is the family oubliette , but we scuffle with 
our feet to drown the moans of those mauvais sujets who lie 
below, and the orchestra sounds its loudest strains to dis- 
guise the rattle of their chains. 

“ My dear husband,” said Arminell, “ take Lamerton to 
see your models. They will interest him, and I will go in 
with mamma. Besides, you can clear his mind of delusions 
with respect to the Druids, which is really important. You 
know that there is a circle of stones on Orleigh Common, 
and in an unguarded moment the boy might attribute them 
to the ancient Britons.” 

“ The matter is not one to joke upon,” said Jingles, with 
a flicker of annoyance in his face. 

Then he retreated to the pavilion with his old 'pupil, to 
show him the work on which he was engaged. 

Arminell, quick in perception, saw that Lady Lamerton 
had noticed the transient cloud, so she said, with a smile, 
“ Do you remember my husband when he was Giles’s tptor ? 
I mean, do you remember how sensitive he then was! how 
he winced when you came near him ? I have hoard of 
nervous disorders that make men thus susceptible. If you 
put a finger on them, they scream and writhe ; if near them, 
they quiver with apprehension. He was in like manner 
touchy. Now, however, he is quite recovered. There is 
but one single point on which he is sensitive, and where a 
feather will make him wince.” 

“ What is that?” 


ARMINELL. 


5*7 


“ Megalithic monuments.” 

“ Megalithic monuments, my dear ? ” 

“Yes, mamma. He loves me dearly, but even I, who 
can do almost anything with him, would shrink from hold- 
ing Mr. Fergusson’s view that Stonehenge was a work of the 
Anglo-Saxons. If it did not separate us, it would make a 
temporary estrangement. But, understand me, we are the 
greatest of friends, we never quarrel. 1 believe with all my 
soul that the rude stone monuments are prehistoric and 
pre-Keltic.” 

“ And what are his political views ? ” 

“ I do not think he has any. But he is deeply interested 
in the bill for the acquisition and nationalisation of the 
antiquities of the country. He says, and I agree with him, 
that if Britain is to maintain her place as a leading nation 
in the civilized world, she should conserve most strictly 
every prehistoric monument on the soil.” 

Then Arminell made Lady Lamerton rest on the sofa ; 
and she drew a stool to her feet, and sat there holding her 
hands. 

“ I dare say you cannot understand why I married him,” 
she said, after a short period of silence and mutual endear- 
ments. “ But* I was much alone, and oh ! so solitary. I 
wanted a companion and did* not relish the idea of an 
elderly eligible female, who, with bland perpetual smile, ac- 
quiescence in all my vagaries, non-resistance to my opinion, 
would have been intolerable to me. I could not do without 
a companion, and I could not endure the society of one. 
It is the vocation of these companions to be complaisant, 
to have no view, no opinion, no personality. Unless she 
were all that, she would be no companion ; if she were all 
that, she would be insupportable to me. Then — with her I 
could not have talked about dear Orleigh.” 

She stroked and then kissed her step-mother’s hand. 

*‘Also poor Jingles — I mean Mr. Saltren— requir d a 


ARMINELL. 


5'3 

companion, a nurse ; some one to look after him day and 
night, and see that he changed his socks when they were 
damp, and drank fresh milk warm from the cow, and took 
tonics at regular hours, and had sweet-oil rubbed into his 
back between the shoulder-blades. I could not ask Mrs. 
Bankes to do that, or the housemaid, and there was really 
no one else who could be asked. I could not do this 
unless I married him, and so — I became his wife, and 
rubbed in the sweet-oil. Thank God, he is a strong man 
now; but he has to be kept up to the mark. I go with 
him when he makes archaeological excursions to the Morbi- 
han, or to Scotland to plan old stones, for when he gets 
interested he forgets himself, and would work on in an east 
wind or in a sou’-west drizzle unless I were by to insist on 
his postponing the measurements till the weather mends. 
He is a dear, amiable fellow, and yields with the best grace. 
It is real pleasure to have to do with him. Now tell me 
something about Orleigh.” 

“About the people?” 

“O yes, mamma, about the dear people there.” 

“ You know that Sam Ceely is married to Joan Melhuish, 
and she is devoted to that old impostor as you seem to be 
to your patient. They live now in the cottage which was 
occupied by Captain Tubb till he moved to the old quarry.” 

“ Where is Patience Kite ? ” 

“ She has been had up twice before the magistrates for 
obtaining money under false pretences. She is an inveter- 
ate witch, and might well have been left alone, but Mrs. 
Cribbage has taken a dislike to her, and set the police upon 
her, and has had her summonsed. Just now she is in 
prison, because she could not pay the fine imposed on her. 
How is her daughter, Thomasine ? ” 

“ Thomasine ! — I will ring and you shall see her.” 

“ Not just yet, Arminell.” 

“No, presently. She is the belle of Bournemouth 


ARMINELL. 


5 T 9 


Such a handsome girl, blooms into greater beauty than ever, 
and is so good and affectionate and steady. She is going 
to be married to a coast-guard man, a most respectable 
fellow.” 

“ And now about yourself, Armie. Does time not hang 
heavy on your hands ? You cannot be always engaged on 
pre-historic antiquities.” 

“ Indeed, mamma,” answered Arminell with energy, 
“time does not hang heavy on m.y hands. I have, of 
course, my dear husband, to consider first of all, but I have 
plenty to occupy me besides — dufies thoroughly humdrum. 
I visit the old women, I read to the sick, I am an active 
patroness of the Girls’ Friendly Society, and I teach every 
Sunday in the school.” 

“ You do ! Why, Armie, you used to hate Sunday 
School.” 

“ Dear mamma, I wish you could hear my class of girls, 
they have just acquired the list of apocryphal books which 
are not to be applied to establish doctrine. And, till I 
find some positive truth to teach, I content myself with 
making them repeat the names of all the homilies which no 
one has read, and which never are likely to be read. They 
have also been taught the meaning of Quinquagesima, Sexa- 
gesima, and Septuagesima.” 

“ And you think you are really doing good, Armie ? ” 

“ I am using all my energies to teach my girls to grow 
up humdrum women.” 


THE END. 











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